Katherine Cronin's blog

In the whole week that I cycled across Hungary, I raised a small cheer from a woman at a bus stop just outside Budapest and a wave from a single construction worker a few days later. That was it. Within two minutes of crossing the border into Romania I'd already received more roadside greetings than that. And on my first day in Romania I made two new friends too.

I'd been stood at the side of the road munching on a mini pizza when a young cyclist came past. He pointed ahead of himself, asking me in which direction I was going, I nodded and he continued. Once I restarted cycling I found him waiting for me just up the road. We cycled the next thirty kilometres together towards Arad.

Martin spoke a little English although the conversation couldn't flow too well with one of us cycling behind the other on a busy main road. First I learned that he's a painter, although I'm not sure in what sense, artistic or decorator. Then there was an odd exchange when he seemed to say that I have to be careful of the police in Romania but I would be safe with him because his woman is a policewoman. Or maybe I misunderstood. It's hard to imagine that he'd think his own mum to be dodgy.

Not far from Arad he was turning off and we stopped and had a proper face to face chat. I was a little embarrassed that after preparing a very useful Survival Hungarian crib sheet, I'd done nothing at all for Romanian. Martin taught me the words for thank you, hello, one, two, three and, most importantly, beer. Luckily, all but 'thank you' seem very close to Italian and I've already had to survive that language. He gave me some biscuits, enigmatically told me that there was a bulletin out about me (no, I've no idea either) and then he was off.

An hour or so later I rolled up to my destination, a campsite in the tiny village of Minis. There I met Cornel, the site owner, a Romanian with a Dutch wife. Along with other efforts of Cornel's family they run this campsite as a charity with profits going to the poorest Romanian families.

I was low on provisions and asked Cornel if there was a nearby shop. "Yes, just up the road." And it's open on a Sunday? "Ah, it's Sunday. No then." Well, I had some noodles in my panniers. They would have to do. But while I was setting up the tent he came over and told me that he and his daughter were going in his car to a cheap restaurant that evening and, given my lack of food, would I like to come too. So I did. And perhaps he regretted it. Because while his daughter played with her phone, I asked him questions. Lots of questions. I think he liked to talk though. I mean, there were no short answers. And in the end I'd finished my food and he was still only halfway through his. I figured I'd better stop the interrogation for a bit before his dinner went cold. But he wasn't done with his information. Back at the campsite, over a shot of his home-made palinka (plum brandy, close to 60% alcohol), we perused the map and he pointed out some places I might want to see - such as the real Dracula town rather than the fake tourist one. He also pointed out a better, quieter route for the following day's ride. Having seen the state of some of the roads on my way into Romania, I asked him if they would be asphalted. "Oh yes," he replied confidently.

The next day I headed off the scary, truck-filled main road on to the secret network of backroads I would otherwise have avoided. And yes, they were asphalted. For the first ten kilometres. And then they weren't. For the next twenty kilometres they were dust and stones and potholes, and in their danker parts, mud. This would be fine on a mountain bike but it's not much fun on a heavily-loaded, thin-wheeled road bike. "Whenever I return from the Netherlands to Romania, I'm always so angry about how terrible the roads are here," Cornel had lamented the night before. I know how he feels.

On Friday 8 February I received some bad news. It wasn’t entirely unexpected but it nonetheless shook my world. Redundancy. Eight weeks’ notice of. The words rung in my ears for days like tinnitus. Gnawing away at my confidence and slowly grinding my mood down to an all-time low. I knew it was coming. The contract I had been working on was due to finish any time and there simply wasn’t any more work for me, but still, when the letter was handed to me I felt a fear far greater than any I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Friends and family tried to console me with polite yet unconvincing arguments insinuating that I’m ‘too clever NOT to get another job’ and that my newfound education would surely mean that any company I applied to would be silly to not take me on, but their arguments were frustratingly pointless to the ears of a girl facing the prospect of dole. I’ve worked solidly since I left school at seventeen and have given loyal service to only two companies. The first for seven years and the second for nine years so even the prospect of starting with a new company filled me with the fear of the unknown (or rather, the little experienced) however not as much fear as the thought of claiming jobseekers.

I frantically applied for positions – anything I was remotely capable of doing I applied for and after three weeks the application total was up to around fifty. Whoever said there are no jobs out there clearly hasn’t looked hard enough. The real problem, as I discovered, is the volume of competition in the job market. So much so that most companies seem unable to inform you that you’ve been unsuccessful in your application; a real bone of contention I must admit.

After four weeks of applications I got my first interview and less than twenty four hours later I got offered the job. Halleluiah. Praise Gaia someone is willing to give me a chance!

The interview had involved some competency tests and face-to-face elements with questions like ‘give me an example of a time when you...’ and this is where I think I clinched it. One of the questions was about managing deadlines and working out priorities so rather than draw on employment based examples I pulled the study game out of the bag. You see, the thing about us part time and/or mature students is that we have no choice but to manage our time well. It’s not something that comes naturally to everyone so it’s a skill we acquire over years of studying in whatever spare time we can muster and organising ourselves around that. During the interview I managed to draw on examples from paid employment, studying and volunteering. I actually felt quite proud of my answers, managing to respond quickly and with an appropriate and strong anecdote.

I started my new job on Monday 18th (hence the radio-silence on the blog, apologies folks) and I’m both pleased and relieved to say that it’s a good job with a good company doing something far more suited to me. The job is based around research and writing so it’s a perfect use of the skills I’ve developed through my studies. The subject area is around healthcare and myself and a few of the other analysts have already expressed an interest in learning more about dementia issues and dementia care and I know there’s a great OU module which would be ideal for us all – K235: Dementia Care fits the bill well so it may be put forward to HR as a suggestion at some point.

Since I accepted the job I’ve been invited to five other interviews for other positions, all of which I’ve turned down because either they’re too low-paid or the job is doing something I know I wouldn’t enjoy, but it’s really reassuring that I got more than one invite. That’s not to say I would get offered any of the other five, but knowing that you’ve been shortlisted is a real confidence-booster.

I’d been at my last job for just shy of nine years. I was stuck in a real rut and I knew it, I just didn’t do anything about it because it was easier to stay put. Getting my redundancy was just the push I needed to seek out something better and I firmly believe that my studies and volunteering with the OU helped me stand out in a sea of other applicants. With the benefit of hindsight and the safe knowledge of continuous employment, being made redundant was the best bad news I’ve ever had.

I'm excited. By the time you read this I will be either preparing to leave Austria or already on the road to Budapest on the final leg of the UniCycle50 tour. And unless something amazing has happened to the weather between writing this post and you reading it, it's all going to be a bit snowy. The whole point of splitting the ride into three stages, from April to September for three years, was to avoid the cold stuff. Oh well.

So far, over the 22,500 kilometres I've cycled, I've been spectacularly lucky with the weather. Over the twelve months of actually moving through Europe I have probably had less than three weeks of rain, and six days of that was trying to escape England right at the beginning. And if the rain wasn't as severe as expected, neither was the summer sun. August 2011 probably wasn't the most intelligent time to be cycling through Spain, but then again neither was it ideal to spend the whole of July 2012 in Turkey. Luckily for me, the temperature rarely exceeded 35C (95F) in either place and that's bearable on a bike as long as you keep moving. As this year is the Northern European stage I can't imagine it's the heat that's going to be the problem.

So it looks like, statistically, I'm due some rubbish weather. Fortunately, the countries that I'll be cycling through during the coldest period of 2013 - Austria and Hungary - get a good dumping of snow every year. Surely they will be able to cope with it better than the UK does. I'm expecting clear roads, although the campsites might be more of an issue. That is, if they've even bothered to open at all by the time I pass by.

I'll be presented with a bigger challenge if this year's winter continues into the second half of April. The only hills of any decent size this year are the spooky Carpathian mountains that rise up shortly after I cross the border into Romania. Romania is known for its dodgy roads even at the best of times. If there's snow at the bottom of the hill, climbing up to a pass at 1200 metres will be interesting. Still, no one said it was going to be easy.

So, six months of cycle adventure and study is spread out before me, taking me through some of the most rarely visited places in Europe. And if you happen to live in or around Budapest, Bucharest, Chisinau, Kiev, Minsk, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, Tallin, Moscow, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Cardiff, Dublin, Belfast or Edinburgh, I'd love to meet up for a beer or, more likely, a giant mug of steaming coffee and a warm blanket. You can reach me at steven@UniCycle50.com once my computer has defrosted.