I've been asked quite a lot lately why I'm going the way I'm going.
Apparently, if you're cycling from Land's End to John o' Groats, you're supposed to take the shortest possible route between the two.
Which would probably be sensible.
But then again, I'm cycling an upright piano across Britain, so I'm not entirely sure sensible was ever going to be a particularly important part of the plan.
The truth is, this route was never about finding the quickest way to Scotland.
After my first attempt at JOGLE ended in 2021, I spent the next five years busking, working and trying to find a way to bring this dream back to life.
Along the way I met people who believed in what I was trying to do. People who welcomed me into their towns, came back to hear me play and eventually became friends.
I also met plenty who didn't.
But the towns that welcomed me stayed with me.
And when Yorkie and I started planning this journey, there were some places we knew I had to return to.
Not because they were on the shortest route.
Because I wanted to say thank you.
Bury St Edmunds was always going to be one of those places.
I've played there many times over the years, and somewhere along the way it became one of those towns that felt a little like coming home. Which is a rather strange thing to say when your home has been on the road for so long.
The last few months had taken quite a lot out of me, and returning to London and St Pancras was emotional, as it always is. It's where my life with the piano began, and where I began building a life that matters. Going back as part of LEJOG brought a lot of memories with it.
My support driver had a planned holiday, so Yorkie and I arranged the route to make sure we'd spend that time in Bury.
What I wasn't expecting was just how much those days would mean to me.
There's something quite extraordinary about arriving at a market and being greeted with a smile. Or a good morning. Or someone calling your name because they remember you.
Or stallholders arguing over which stall gets to have you play in front of them.
After some of the receptions I've had elsewhere, I almost didn't know what to do with myself.
People heard I was back and came looking for the piano. Some wanted to hear me play, some wanted a catch-up and others simply stopped to say hello.
Nobody needed convincing that I belonged there. They were just pleased to see me.
And I can't begin to tell you what a difference that makes.
One of the people I always look forward to seeing in Bury is Stephen Hooper.
Stephen has been coming to see me play for years. Whenever I've turned up in town with the piano, there's a good chance he won't be far behind.
Instead of pushing my piano into town as I've done for so many years, I arrived on the Vok, with the journey I'd spent five years trying to make happen finally underway.
And there was Stephen, just as he always has been.
He turned up and stayed.
When you spend so much of your life moving from place to place, those familiar faces mean an awful lot. They remind you that the friendships you've made don't disappear simply because you've packed up the piano and moved on.
This is my tenth year as a full-time busker. My tenth winter sitting outside playing music, whatever the weather.
When I started in London, I had a keyboard and a sign saying I was saving to bring a piano to the street. All I wanted was a real acoustic piano of my own to play.
Ten years later, I'm cycling an upright piano across Britain, working towards bringing acoustic pianos to communities all over the country.
Somewhere along the way, a dream of having one piano became a mission to provide many.
I'm not entirely sure when that happened, or quite how. But sitting there in Bury, surrounded by people who've known me for so much of that journey, I realised just how far the dream has come.
And how many people have helped keep it alive.
There were so many acts of kindness during my time in Bury.
The owners of the Fox Inn generously offered me a room for a night, giving me the chance to have a proper rest, get cleaned up and enjoy a little comfort.
I was also fortunate to receive quite a bit of media attention. BBC television and radio, ITV and Suffolk News helped share the journey and the mission, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.
Not because I particularly enjoy being in front of a camera, but because every interview introduces what we're doing to people who might never otherwise hear about it.
And people came out.
Some had followed the journey for years. Others had only just heard about it. Some wanted to ask questions, some wanted to listen and others simply wanted to wish me well.
It was wonderful.
I've written before about the difficult encounters I've had in some towns, and how much they can affect me. But Bury was a reminder of what happens when people simply choose to be kind.
A hello instead of being told to leave. A smile instead of suspicion. Someone taking a moment to ask what you're doing rather than assuming for themselves.
It's such a simple thing, and yet the difference couldn't be greater.
I sometimes wonder why more towns aren't like this. Why the people responsible for markets and high streets don't understand that it isn't just about what music can bring to a community. Music helps build community. It brings strangers together, turns ordinary moments into shared experiences and becomes part of the fabric that holds a community together.
That's what I love about busking.
And Bury reminded me of it.
Even some of the more difficult places have given me friendships I'll always value. Sidmouth was one of the hardest experiences I've had on this journey, but it's also where I met Jamie, who became a friend when I really needed one.
Sometimes the thing you remember most about a place isn't what went wrong. It's the person who made it a little easier.
And that's really what this route is about.
For five years I travelled around Britain busking and trying to get this journey back on the road. Some people looked at my signs, which explained that I was working and saving towards restarting the journey, and decided I must be making it all up. I've been called a beggar, a con and a grifter.
Apparently spending years working towards something that seems impossible makes some people suspicious.
But I was working towards a dream, and I wasn't doing it alone.
For the last two years, Yorkie and I have put our own money, time and resources into making this journey possible. We're proud that LEJOG is entirely self-funded through our personal contributions, busking tips, merchandise sales and direct PayPal donations.
We're equally proud of the commitment we've made to our PianoMission. Not a penny donated through our GoFundMe has been used to fund this journey, nor will it be. Every donation is reserved exclusively for acquiring, placing and servicing acoustic pianos in public spaces and with families who could benefit from having one.
PianoManOfficial Ltd is our not-for-profit company, and neither of us takes an income from it, nor will we. Every penny donated to the PianoMission is intended for the pianos themselves, not for us.
That's something we both feel very strongly about.
The people who believed in me during those years are part of the reason certain towns are on this route. Others are places I wanted to return to because of what happened there, hoping to make peace with the past and perhaps replace a difficult memory with a better one.
There was never any intention to get from Land's End to John o' Groats as quickly as possible.
If that had been the objective, I probably wouldn't have brought a piano.
I won't be able to visit every town I'd like to, but there are some I was never going to miss.
Bury was one of them.
After everything that's happened over the last few months, I think I needed somewhere I could simply be James. Somewhere people knew me, were pleased to see me and didn't need an explanation for why I was there.
And that's what Bury gave me.
As my time there came to an end, I found myself having mixed feelings about leaving. I'd finished my final set on Remembrance Sunday and knew it was time to get moving again, but I wasn't particularly keen to say goodbye.
I know it will be a long while before I see some of those familiar faces again.
But there's still a journey to finish.
So I got back on the Vok and headed out into the evening.
It was another one of those night rides I've come to enjoy. The roads were quiet, the air was getting colder and I had plenty of time to think as I made my way north through a dense fog.
By the time I'd finished, I'd ridden another 39.22 miles, mostly in the dark.
And somewhere along that ride, we passed another milestone. More than 800 miles on the LEJOG route, and over 1,000 miles of cycling altogether.
With an upright piano.
I still find those numbers rather difficult to comprehend.
When I think back to my first attempt in 2021 and the years that followed trying to make this possible again, it's quite something to realise how far we've come.
Not just in miles.
There's still a long way to go, but for the first time in quite a while, I'm beginning to believe that dreams really can become reality. Sometimes they just take a lot of work, a fair bit of stubbornness and the determination to keep going.
Which is rather nice.
Before I finish, I want to say something to the people of Bury St Edmunds.
I'm not entirely sure how you thank a whole town.
To the market traders who welcomed me back, everyone who came to listen, the familiar faces who made the effort to find me, Stephen, the owners of the Fox Inn, the journalists who took an interest in this crazy story and everyone who helped share the mission, thank you.
You probably don't realise what those days in Bury St Edmunds meant to me.
After everything that had happened earlier in the journey, you gave me something I hadn't realised I was missing quite so much.
A sense of belonging.
And a reminder of why I started doing this in the first place.
I've been asked so many times why I'm taking such a strange route to John o' Groats.
I suppose the answer is actually quite simple.
It was never going to be the shortest route.
Much like my life, it was probably never going to be the most straightforward one either.
But it was always going to be the most meaningful.
And after Bury St Edmunds, I'm more certain of that than ever.
See you somewhere along the road.
— James
