"The Man Who Can't Be Moved"

(The Script)

Feeling weary after 12 days cycling but a big mileage had to be done to get me closer to Limoges and so I asked Anna to find a suitable spot and 85 miles away we identified St-Pourçain-sur-Sioύle. The ride was quite gentle by earlier days standards and the weather got a lot hotter with my riding in 31/32°, the issue immediately became having enough water on the bike to keep regularly drinking. Other characteristics came back to me such as melting roads. The smells (other than tarmacadam) turned to scents and Vincent Van Gogh came to mind as I saw my first sunflowers soaking up the sun. When I rolled in I decided to take my rest day here which meant washing (more…..I do wash clothes everyday but here with the weather so hot then I could avoid carrying wet clothes on the bike). St-Pourçain-sur-Sioύle seemed like a road and river  crossing point, just above the infamous Vichy, and was once upon a time one of the locations of the 8 mints in France but that all ended in the 16^th Century. I cleaned the bike, borrowed a track pump (bliss) off a friendly Belgian and indulged myself with a copy of The Times. In the early evening it rained and I only mention this because the hale was epic but did get rid of the oppressive humidity. Later it rained and we are talking biblical…..