No disrespect to Brians, but when you're getting battered by the tail end of a hurricane, with trees being flattened by 60mph gusts and comedy rain turning roads into rivers, you'd ideally want your nemesis to be called Zeus, or Rambo. Not Brian. Hurricane Brian. That was just taking the piss.
South of Barmouth I crossed the Mawddach estuary over the 113 spectacular but fragile-looking wooden spans of the railway bridge – which Brian was doing its best to demolish – and, shortly after, ducked, exhausted, into a caravan site, now all shuttered up till spring, where my brother had kindly put his van at my disposal.
I Googled the weather. I wished I hadn't. Brian was hanging around for a couple of days. I looked out of the rain-streaked window and saw a pigeon, sheltering under a bush. It was still there 30 minutes later, so I opened the door and, bending down, could see that the bird, tame as you like, had rings on its legs. I Googled racing pigeons. "Exhausted birds need a supply of rice and water," it said. I gave Brian (it seemed a more fitting name for a pigeon than a hurricane) some rice and water and for the next two days we watched the clouds scud across the sky.
By the third day, both Brians were gone and, unnerved by a strange orange orb in the sky emitting warm rays, I took off too, following the glorious coast road flying high above the sea to Tywyn and finally lovely Cardigan. I called a number, given to me by a touring cyclist I'd met back in Mull. "Oh, hi, Mike. Nick told us about you," said a man. "Your timing's good. The Do Lectures start today, out at the Fforest campsite. Do you want to go?"
"Love to," I said and, armed with directions, headed off for the camp up the Teifi Gorge thinking about many things, the foremost of which was: what the hell are the Do Lectures?
"And you are…?" a woman with a clipboard asked.
"Erm, Mike Carter," I said. "I won't be on your list though. I'm just passing through for the night."
"Never mind. You can sleep in the tent over there," she said. "Exciting isn't it?"
"What is?"
"The Do Lectures."
"I suppose so, but I don't really…"
"First one starts at 3.30pm. See you there."
I took my seat at the edge of a tepee holding around 80 people. A man came on stage and started talking about branding and advertising. I wondered if I could sneak out. But then he said something extraordinary. I can't even remember what it was exactly, but it reminded me of the saying that we tell stories to confirm that we're not alone. The talk wasn't about advertising. It was about the opposite of advertising: about play, about losing the fear of failure, about a sustainable future that was as desirable as it was achievable.
An architect who designs commercial structures using nature as a blueprint spoke for half an hour, then a guy who's fighting the oil companies in the Amazon rainforest. A farmer told us how he fought and won against the trialling of GM crops in Wales. "We learn through play," said the education commissioner of Channel 4. "To suck the fun out of learning is frankly criminal. We need to maximise happiness, not profit." It felt like I'd arrived home.
Four days later I was still there, as speaker after speaker held the audience rapt. And maybe it was the heady Welsh air, or even the copious amounts of Welsh beer we drank in the evenings while we shared our stories and laughed until our faces ached, but suddenly everything seemed possible; the future full of promise; the good guys in charge.
I thought when I left London that this journey would change my life, as all journeys must, but I never imagined it happening so profoundly and in a tepee in a Welsh field.
The delegates and speakers all formed a tunnel to wave me off. I cycled through it, showboating a little, and then crashed spectacularly, panniers all over the place, me flailing around like an upturned woodlouse, trapped under the bike, all captured on many cameras. But instead of feeling humiliation, I thought about everything I'd shared with these lovely people – challenging the notions of failure and making a fool of yourself – and as I started to laugh, and looked up, all I could see was a sea of smiling faces and, seconds later, a wave of hysterical laughter filled the air.
Miles this week 225 Total miles 3,410
Contact See the 2009 Do Lectures for free at thedolectures.co.uk
