"Perfect Day"

 

Perfect Day (The Velvet Underground)

Sunny morning roads

 

Left Semeries and as soon as I hit the road that ‘feel good’ sensation about cycling in France kicked in for the first time. The smell of the fields, all verdant and plentiful, the trees overhanging the road, the inevitable rise and fall of the roads and the eventual bleaching of light as the early moisture burns off with the temperature reaching into the 30’s. The rolling hills bring some distress as I reach for the 'granny' chain wheel to breast that hill but going down the other side is like being in a glider where you suddenly swoop and you hold on.....a very different feeling to a road bike because this time you have so much weight that the bike tracks a true and steady course down the hill. Lunch was sorted at a supermarket where I boughet a baguette some crab pate and a tomato and this was ate in between slapping on the Factor 30. Eventually got to Attigny where I found the camp site, handed across my 7 € and found a shady pitch. At this point I must bring to you my delight and surprise and an explanation as to why the Dutch, on their day can be the greatest nation on Earth. a bloke in budgie smugglers appeared from around the corner clutching an ice cold can of beer telling me that he noted that I didn't have a fridge amongst my luggage. He was correct and I was so pleased. After Attigny it was on to Verdun. Temperatures soared to up to 35 degrees as I accummulated 320 miles for the trip, so far, and I started to encounter the history of WW1. First it was the American Cemetery as I entered the Meuse region and then at Varennes-en-Argonne I saw a monument funded by the Pennsylvanian State in 1927 to the American dead. The USA had by the end of the war put 2,000,000 men onto French soil and lost 53,000 alone in the Verdun war....enough of this later. On a more culinary note then Varennes brought me lunch and a place that I must visit one day.....



Now you're talking!




More fuel for the next 100 metre climb