Like a broad sheet newspaper, I write a page here on money matters. How much money is enough. I've learn from my cycle-touring travels that, or as a cycling couple I met in South America put it, "people think we are rich when we say we've been on the road three years. We aren't we tell them. We don't own a house, nor do we own a car." Sure enough, owning a house and a car is about constantly paying bills. Indeed, a stationary life in Europe whether renting or owning accommodation is very expensive when compared to a clean personal procession uncluttered cycle-touring lifestyle, especially outside of expensive Europe. Money though, is the cause of much anxiety for me at the moment, because my credit card doesn't work in most ATMs in France. Like all branded things in France, banks like everything else in this country are all French, there aren't the foreign-card friendly foreign banks, the Santanders and Citibanks.

But perhaps I'm missing a point here, as this morning I marched confidently into the city's commercial district, confident that I would indeed withdrawn cash from an ATM. It'd gone ten o'clock when I reached the big glass doors of Credit Lyonaise on Rue du Republique. I think there's some security gremlin which stops my card being used in machines out in the street and therefore I go in the door into the bank's marbled lobby where there's a reception desk and two ATMs I put my card in the slot of one and it sucks it in, in perhaps to never come back out but Is heartily relieve to hear the machine click in to action, after I'd tapped in the instructions, and the clicking sound like a turning bicycle wheel with a protruding playing card: the money hatch then opened and the money slid out. The security gremlin thing, it's my theory, ridiculous as it may sound, allows the indoor machine to work, supposedly because a fraudulent user of a card may not come into the bank.

Having money back in my pocket again, put a different light on things after a Sunday of anxieties, and I'm looking forward to the ride onwards from Avignon, but it's only Monday and bike-shops are shut, as are outdoor shops where I need to buy gas.

I walked around looking for bike-shops and outdoor shops, just to know where they're at if anything else.

The walled city of Avignon like the majority of European cities has everything within walking distance, the streets though are a maze and you can easily get lost and thereby walk a long distance until you find your bearing again. I had a street-plan from the tourist office but the street names were in such small print it was a little like the eyesight-test for bespectacled people, whereby the optician asks, can you read any of the very small print on the bottom line? I couldn't make out for example on this plan if a letter is an N or M, a G or a Q. It's maybe christel clear for a twenty-five year old with perfect eyesight.

I walked the whole length of a street called "Ouilerme Puy"; the location of the nearest bike-shop marked on the plan, but there wasn't any bike-shop: all I can think is there used to be one there but has recently moved. Walking to the next shop marked, my bladder was bursting and I'd to find somewhere with toilets. I stopped at a pavement cafe and was intending to sit down to have a coffee, but first I asked could I use the toilets. The server said in no uncertain words or something "ne pas........toilet public"; so I walked on until I came to a cafe which looked friendlier, which was one where I saw they had large cups on the tables, not those tiny little espresso cups. The big jovial man with dreadlocks behind the counter, allowed me to pass through to the toilets first, whether or not I would stop for coffee when I'd relieved myself.

I eventually reached the bike-shop: Ferme a Lundi, of course, but peering in the window, I saw it's a lightweight shop, insomuch that they only sell racing bikes: they had some cheap street bikes, but I don't think they'll have disc-brake bits, though, if anything, they'll know a bike-shop that does.

Wow! How bike bits have changed since the nineties when I raced. Innovations like complete SRAM road groupsets. And Shimano with STI gear-cables routed underneath the handlebar-tape.

But at the moment, I need a bike that works properly. A bike is, or at lease should be, a machine easily repaired; well, my gearhanger breaking proved that is not so, at lease on today's bikes which have bits which aren't always easy to rectify when they go wrong, such as hydraulic brakes.

I returned to the campsite around noon and heading out again in the afternoon, I stopped by reception, to ask the whereabouts of an electrical shop, as I had to buy a French power-adapter so I can charge my computer: another area where life is complicated for the end consumer, because countries can't agree to use the same power socket. The electical store is out of town so perhaps I'll cycle there tomorrow. I asked also about a bookshop, which is here in town, a large one on Rue du Republique, beside the bank where Is this morning.

I bough a map of Spain and spent a few hours relaxing at a pavement cafe with the map open on the table, looking at possible routes across Spain. Folding up the map later, I managed to attract the server's atention and order another coffee, as he cleared tables. I leant back in my seat and took in Avignon, Citi Du Papas. And all I could say looking at the over all situation while waiting, I find myself a hundred times better here than at home.

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