Lots of other residents of the campsite / trailer park were emerging at the same early hour as me but whilst I was off on my trip, they were all off to work wearing a wide variety of high vis outfits. I was so pleased to be on the road and away from the place. Looking back, my less than joyous sojourn there was coloured by the heat and fruitless search for front panniers.
In order to try for more space, I tried out yet another packing routine. This time I put all my food at the bottom of my roll bag and shoved everything on top. It helped, a bit but made the overall packing a mess. Fact is, whatever way I tried to pack, I just didn’t have any room and needed to offload some items. As it was now a full week since I left, I decided to head towards the city of Laon which had a magnificent looking Cathedral and take the next day off. It would give me a chance to find a post office as well and send some unnecessary items back home.
I went around in circles trying to get find the D57, at one point passing over a canal that led me into a road that was submerged in water. A couple of farmers in waders told me that it was OK to pass, but they had a mischievous look in their eyes as they assured me the ford wasn’t too deep and I decided against attempting to cross. A couple of hours later, I found myself at the village of Couvron-et-Aumencourt which had an artisanal boulangerie where I bought a delicious organic, no sugar, croissant & pain-au-chocolat made with local flour, served by a buxom wench with, what I could tell, was a killer smile behind the mask. I sat in a small park opposite and just felt good.
As ever, the sun was rising and I begun to wonder when will the heat ever end? Although one thing that I am learning so far on this trip, acceptance. Normally I would be getting irritated by this non-stop blast furnace, but there is nothing I can do about it except just get up whilst it is dark and keep going for as long as it is possible. Sure, it means not a huge number of KMs per day, but then there is no rush is there.
I also find the long stretches in frankly rather uninspiring landscape means I have time to think and ruminate on life in general. Like many people, I have a robust catalogue of negative experiences upon which to draw, and anger is such a delicious pleasure. It is so easy to tap into, requiring little to no effort. But it is draining, unproductive, destructive and ultimately leaves you feeling knackered. I have realised that as soon as I start inadvertently dipping into that catalogue, I shout out loudly to no one in particular ‘Negative Thoughts, Banish Them’ (I know, sounds dumb but it works) and then I refocus on what is around. The more I do this, the longer the stretch before my mind eventually wanders back to that catalogue, whereby I rinse and repeat my shouty command. I’m happy about that.
I arrived at the campsite La Chenaie which had a pool and lots of shady pitches. Felt great to book in for a couple of nights, cracked my tent up in record breaking time and then set off to the local carrefour to get some lunch supplies. I felt very French as I cycled back with my baguettes crammed into the cargo net. I really went to town with the lunch, including a bottle of gorgeous chilled white Bordeaux. Felt its effects and had a long and rather too loud 'phone conversation with my friend Ingrid, so much so that one of my neighbours came over to tell me off afterwards.
Went for a quick swim then back for an afternoon nap, followed by a cycle around the local area and a gorgeous sunset at the nearby pond. Mosquitos. Got chatting with one Michel, one of the guys that ran the site and arranged to meet up tomorrow for a couple of local beers.
Slept well and dreamt of panniers with space and a cool breeze.
Oh yes, life is good.
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