August 11, 2019
Many shades of Gray
Soissons to Gray
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OUR short ride from the peaceful pleasure of our field to the frustrating town of Gray has been taxing. It has been up and down all day and we have been riding against the clock because few shops open on Sundays and those that do close soon after noon. And we need food because, another novelty that displeases at the moment, shops don't always re-open on Mondays.
We got to Gray drained, the sky grey and with news that it was going to rain from noon to night.
The Lovely Mrs Woodland, bless her, did scramble to Gray's one open food shop in time - I am not always judged welcome or competent on these excursions - and we sat outside the one bar, watched traffic including other cyclists come over the bridge, and debated the extravagance of a hotel rather than a wet campground.
There being no more than one of anything in Gray, at least on a Sunday, there was just one hotel. Or there were two but the other was shut despite showing every sign of being open.
The helpful man at the bar told us the campground was a few hundred metres down the road. When he sensed our reluctance, he called the one hotel "correct." That, in French, means you'll get no unpleasant surprises but things won't be better than that.
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We opted for "correct" and that's where we are now, in a hotel in which the management seemed not to know if there were rooms or not. I am by the window, looking at rain falling not just on the bridge but on three touring cyclists going through the same indecision that we experienced.
I feel like a celebrated old buffer who, in his gentlemen's club in London, sat inside the room when the weather was good but by the window when it rained. When someone asked why he was so keen to see the rain falling, he answered grumpily "Because I like to see the damned people getting wet."
We're now at the start of north-east France, if that doesn't sound too clumsy. It is a sign of progress and our relative closeness to the edge of the country that road signs sometimes point to towns not in France but Germany.
Little has pleased today but, equally, nothing has offended. The countryside has been "correct" if unwelcomely hilly. But, as I said, it has been fine. If we hadn't been tired, we'd probably have stayed at the campground regardless. But I think we're both glad that we didn't.
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