June 18, 2015
Vatan, France: The foolishness of rising too soon
DO YOU EVER wake up in the morning and curse that it's too early? Well, probably you don't, because your vitality and quest for life are unquenchable. But me, this morning, I started getting ready at 5. Then, at three minutes past 5, I sighed "Blow this for a game of soldiers" and slid back into my bag.
This is far from the ever-energetic behaviour you have come to expect of me, so I ought to explain. And the explanation is that the rain was back this morning. It became suddenly dark at the end of yesterday afternoon and the darkness turned to heavy sploshes and the sploshes into rain that was still scowling on street corners this morning.
It's never light at 5 in France but it usually is by the time I've made coffee. I am a lark, the irritating neighbour who whistles at dawn, so 5 is no problem. But I reasoned that my back light, which I was going to need if the day was slow to brighten, was in the bottom of a pannier. It was the justification I needed. No man should be forced to reach into a pannier if he doesn't care to.
I curled up and slept for another hour.
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There was still nobody awake at 6. Why would there be? That's the point of being up at 6, that you have the world to yourself. It smells bright and fresh, and it's quiet enough to hear deer watching unseen from woods and for rabbits to pitter-patter as they run. Much later than that and the car people come and spoil it all.
The roadside ferns were still sulking when I set off, their heads drooped under raindrops. The road hissed. Birds looked up and said "Goodness! Is that the time?" I rode through the woods of the Brenne regional park, the trees sheltering me when the wind came from the left, creating an alley in which it pushed when I turned a little.
Birds sang in harmony and counter-harmony, not for my sake but, because everything in nature is cruel, to once more stake their hunting ground and warn off rivals. They were claiming the right to eat, sleep and breed. Birds care about little else. A lot of humans, too, come to think of it.
Before noon I had left the regional park and I was in the open, empty and gently rolling country of Berry, one of France's most central départements. People don't buy second homes here. It is farming country, not aggressively so but without the primary-colour glitter of tourist districts. There were fields of corn of all sorts, golden or brown, from barley tanned by the sun to wheat still hurrying to be ready for harvest. Convivial but functional.
I am making progress, in the dry but against the wind. I should have set off earlier...
Today's ride: 91 km (57 miles)
Total: 507 km (315 miles)
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