April 4, 2015
Breaking and entering: Cosse-le-Vivier to Chaudefont
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IT was Canada or America. One of the two. On our right on a wood-lined road was a campground, closed, and outside it a stern warning that "camping here will be considered theft of facilities."
Very scaring.
And then, beside it, a price list explaining that a night in a tent there was, say, $15. So if you slept there regardless, that's the most you'd be "stealing". Maybe less, considering you'd have gone without a shower.
Now, I don't know American or Canadian law but it occurs to me that a town isn't likely to cancel all police leave and alert the courts over anything so trivial. I don't see it all ending in prison, do you?
Well, we didn't stop there because I'm not insensitive and if someone really doesn't want me, I'm happy to move on. But tonight, not for the first time even on this trip, I have broken into a closed campground. Or, anyway, I stooped under a barrier, wheeled through a pleasant grassy area owned by the local council, startled a man in camouflage trying to outwit fish from the river, and pitched my tent.
Not a soul noticed or cared, of course. And it was clear they expected visitors shortly because the grass was recently mown and lay ready as a scented mattress.
I hadn't planned to stay here. I am down in the Loire now, crossing the river rather than riding along it, and any bridge concentrates the traffic. And in the end the traffic and even more so the hills and my tiredness did for me.
It's been a gentle day of quiet, narrow roads through fields sighing in the spring sunshine, and of spindle-legged donkeys peering over gates. The wind placed a warm hand on the small of my back and guided me all day wherever I went. And, at one moment, it guided me through the door of a café-bar in a village known only to locals and tax collectors.
Three men sat on stools by the bar, between the lager pumps and the sign for scratch cards, which are a passion in France. They and the rounded, mature woman behind the bar greeted me the moment I walked in.
"Many kilometres?", one of them asked.
"Too many." I was flaking at the time.
"On holiday, are you?"
"My life," I pronounced grandly, "is one long perpetual holiday."
They laughed.
"How come?"
"Well," I said, "are you still working and paying taxes?"
They agreed with some resentment that they were.
"Then you have the good grace to pay taxes and therefore my pension. So I can ride round on my bike all the time while you're slaving at work."
"Or drinking in a bar", one of them laughed, gesturing at himself and the others.
"Don't worry," the rounded and mature woman said, "I'll get them back to work and paying taxes soon."
They laughed again.
"Worrying that the future of France depends on this lot, isn't?", she said. And everyone laughed again. And asked for another round of drinks.
There was a toboggan climb out of the valley, separated from the traffic on a wide shoulder to make it acceptable, but the café drinks were already wearing off. I saw a sign pointing to a campground at 2km to my left and took the small and gratifyingly level road to get there. I had no idea whether it would actually exist or, if it did, if it was open. But, what matter? A wide and slightly raised strip of land paralleled the road to my right and now and then disappeared through bushes and trees before returning. An old railway, I assumed, or maybe a tramway. Fine for camping wild au cas où, anyway.
But the campground turned out ideal for breaking and entering and a little theft of facilities, and here I sit now, waiting for food to cook and reading about a Québecois trying to make his name with the local bike club.
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