Unfamiliar sensations: Avon-les-Roches to Tours

March 18, 2015

The difficulties of earlier times should never be underestimated. Water, for instance, was so scarce that it had to be protected and all over France are little stone houses built to protect the wells

OH dear, oh dear.

I make many mistakes. One, as I said, was thinking that the end of March meant the start of summer. And the consequence of that was that the tent was horribly colder than I wanted last night, the ground beneath it damper and unfriendlier, and that I woke up this morning feeling like an advertisement for old age and advanced incommodity.

The other mistake was thinking that I am the perpetual spring bunny, that I can embark on these ventures with less than the usual riding through the winter. And, since I'm boring you with my woes, of thinking there'll be few side-effects from not eating sufficiently for the last two days. The result was that, if it's possible to limp on a bike, I began limping from the start today.

I suppose there are other sports in which people know, from the opening moments, that they're in for a hard day. Boxing would be one, I suppose. And bungee-jumpers and alligator-wrestlers must have an inkling pretty soon that things aren't going to turn out well. But I doubt it's familiar to chess players, ballroom champions and limbo dancers. And all normal people.

France until 1900 was all but ruled by the Church. The curé remained a power in the land until the 1960s. Since then France has become one of the most atheistic countries in Europe. The old pilgrimage crosses still stand, though

I don't know if miracles still happen but they used to, all over the place, and the faithful maintain shrines where they happened

Although, looked at in the opposite direction, she's praying that nobody steals my bike

Even my first stop, after only 10km, didn't go well. I walked into a tea-room sort of place, the sort that can't decide if it wants to sell dainty chocolates and cakes on doilies or a decent plate of food with a mug of tea.

The girl behind the counter was young, dark-haired, slightly nervous and new to the job. I asked for a croque-monsieur and for something else I've now forgotten. The girl told me the price and rang it up on the till. I handed over the coins.

Enter now the owner, a cross between a dragon and Édith Piaf, all in black and hitherto more occupied by pinning chiffon across the windows in an attempt at daintiness.

"Did he say whether he was eating in or taking it out?", she asked the girl with no reference to me. I was simply il.

"He didn't say."

She turned to me like a judge astounded at something outrageous in court.

"You didn't say?" She could have played Lady Bracknell ("A handbag?")

"No I didn't say."

"Well, you should have said. Most people take their croque-monsieur with them."

"But I wasn't asked."

The dragon looked at me doubtingly, as though that too was my fault, and I didn't say more because I saw the poor girl's eyes begging me not to. The storm would break over her soon enough. Some problem with the price, I suppose, and I had crooked the old dragon out of a few centimes. She didn't look the sort to overlook it.

And it was a rotten croque-monsieur, anyway, tasteless and pasty. But I didn't die, from that or even the distance. There were times I wished I had, but I still managed a mighty 46km before I gave up.

And in those 46km, I rode through an army training area and marvelled that they left the tanks parked in the fields overnight.

I marvelled that the army left these tanks out all night. But now I look closely, it seems they haven't moved in a while. Maybe that's the sign of a peaceful world. Or have they just forgotten them, do you think?

And I established that grumpiness runs in the blood here when I followed a bike route that, so the planners planned, ran through the grounds of a grand and walled house. Except that the house owners had other thoughts. All of 50m from the last sign was a metal gate and the metal gate was locked.

Forget what the sign says, *ils ne passeront pas*

I imagine correspondence between house owner and council is both continuous and lively.

I rode beside the river and reached Tours. I found a hotel, slept for four hours, ate everything on the menu, then slept again until morning. I know I make it sound miserable but that's the Ee-yore in me. I enjoyed it, really. But, really, I was very, very tired.

What a lovely name for a village: but how did it come about?

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0