Fame at last

Our night on the Ntwetwe salt pan. We were so lucky that there were only the 2 of us. Apparently the group can be as big as 30! Although normally more like 6-8/ Being just 2 felt very exclusive and romantic. When we arrived the cook had already arrived an set up camp so supper was nearly ready. then an hour or so chatting with him and our guide Kigoli about the pans and the wildlife and Botswana in general and then off to our bedrolls under the stars.

This was dawn - the moon just rising - I don't understand the African moon at all! Magical.

Breakfast in the camp.

And finally day break and us leaving the pans, but hopefully not for the last time!

Well, both episodes of My Big Fat Cycle Challenge have been on Sky Real Lives and just part 2 to go tomorrow evening on Sky One now. I'd watched both before they aired as they sent us an advance copy and watched them again with some pals this evening. On the whole, I'm happy with them. Obviously there are always parts you could live without and I think they have missed a trick in some ways but mostly I think they're entertaining, positive and uplifting shows which try to inspire on a fairly surface level.

We had drinks with the producer, director and Steve Peters on Monday night and were talking about how little the chimp model gets aired in the show. We were encouraging him to do a more in-depth show and really explain what he is on about but apparently none of the TV networks are interested. They all think there would be no watchers. I'm biased of course but I think he would get a lot of serious dieters following a proper rigorous programme if he was given the platform.

More evidence of dumbed down Britain I suppose.

The other thing which was striking about our meeting was how easily we had all kept up the sensible eating and dieting. We had all lost weight since filming stopped and were all still exercising regularly and had had no real slip ups. Amazing. And we were all enjoying life, not struggling. Hopefully this means he really has reset our attitudes to food and drink but I'm not getting complacent!!

I'm having much fun at home and work with people chatting to me about the show and generally taking the piss. I hope all the attention is over soon but I'm enjoying it now. It's been nice too as a few friends who I have lost touch with have got in touch having seen the show and that is great. The emails, calls and texts I've had have been wonderful.

So, apart from all the crying in part 2 (which I could really do without!!) it has been a very positive experience. Even the crying though is not as bad as I thought it was on first viewing. I'm quite glad in a way that I opened up as otherwise people might have thought it was all rather easy and straightforward, which it was not!

One of my slight niggles was that the shows don't really get across how hard we worked on the track and how much we loved it. I really enjoyed the velodrome and pushed myself to the limit on that track and that doesn't really come over. Still, you can't get everything spot on and, being fair, I think they've done a pretty good job and portrayed us reasonably accurately.

Hope you enjoyed it.