Later
I have written before about the ingredients for wonderful camping. I remember on my last night under canvas in the Black Forrest last year when at least one of the ingredients was lacking, writing that. The two key ingredients are good weather and a beautiful and socially agreeable site. This trip has combined them both, pretty much unfailingly. Tonight, for example, I was able to buy a bottle of chilled white wine to sip while I cooked up a simple but tasty pasta dish on my stove next to this lovely still river in the still hot evening (onions, tomatoes and some sausage fried up with some curly pasta) interrupted in a good natured way by Betty, black little dog owned by two men camping up just up the hill, who came to investigate me and my tent and my rubbish bag followed by Betty’s sweet owner. There are two women now just behind me also with a dog, a white dog while Betty is a black dog, and a mixed gender couple just over there also by the river. Up on the hard sites are more conventional camper van travellers but nice all the same. There is complete friendliness on this site. But back down here, with my easily cooked meal on a borrowed table done and washed up it is still warm and humid and I sit hot and shirtless and read as the light here starts to dim. It’s half past eight. This campsite is full of the English, or at least English speakers. It makes casual conversations while waiting to dry up or humour about tonight’s expected rain so easy and evokes a sense, imaginary of course, of connection, for me aloneness but with the always available and present connection with others.

There is a very faint rumble of thunder in the distance. I have spent so many hours in my tent in heavy rain that I have a routine: bring everything in, gather it all right in the middle, balance what might get soggy on top of my boots, tighten up the guy ropes so that the fly sheet and inner tent don’t touch, then pray.

2nd August
Phew it is or was a couple of hours back 28 degrees and I feel sleepy and immobilised by heat. It’s Sunday and the nearby(!) supermarket closes or closed at 12. After my delicious breakfast of pain au raisins and a bowl of green tea (so much nicer than my small stainless steel cup for hot drinks) I enquires from the proprietors how long the walk is down to Bourganeuf where the shop is as I wanted to replenish my food supplies. They suggested I use the GR4 footpath rather than the roadside, so armed with their two photocopied maps, water, a snack, my GPS and socks in case my shoes wore out, I set off. Turn right at the yellow postbox in the wall. The route was indeed beautiful, through deeply wooded areas, over hills, but somewhere on the route of course I went wrong and ended up in what felt like a long hot march up a lane. The GPS seemed a little too imprecise to tell me exactly where I was and I had to ask a local in a small village exactly where the path ran. Back on course I left some arrows in stones on the path to remind me where to turn on my return journey (it was needed as I was miles away in thought when I approached them). But I was running out of time and arrived on the edge of the town at ten to twelve so darted into the welcome cool of a Spar supermarket and picked up the few things I needed. My return journey fared a little better and I found the sections of path that I had lost on the way, but I did some improvisation and arrived back hot with aching legs and a blister on my foot. As I was told, my pitch is shady though Belinda gets the heat of the sun and is draped with my towel and other ornaments. I put together a lunch of the baguette I bought this morning from the campsite and some cheese and fresh tomato from Spar. The rest of the afternoon I have spent dozing, reading more of The Old Ways which I have surrendered to enjoying, and planning tomorrow’s route to my final campsite (I think). It is only 57 miles away though the GPS says that will take two hours to get there on the main roads. On the map of the area I have plotted instead a route there all on D roads mostly small and winding through a number of small towns and villages. So a longer journey than two hours and hopefully without Saturday’s traffic queues I will stay cool.

The last site advertises its camping pitches as in the shade of a wood so it could be ideal if the weather stays hot.

in one and a half hours three course dinner is served. I really hope I can do it justice.

1st August
Despite a huge journey today, things just get better on this trip.
Yesterday evening the campsite proprietors served me a three course meal, salad, then a raqulette type dish which I could not finish followed by creme brûlée. She came over to chat, telling me about her and her family’s plans to camp in Florida. She says in America there is a freedom that you don’t get in Europe. If you are awake at 4 am in the states you can go shopping at Walmart. Her plan is for a seven week trip through Arizona with her family, a rented car and a tent she has already bought. She also told me that she couldn’t believe I was born in 1956. Modesty forbids me to recount the rest of her comments. Later with a cigarette and music on headphones I watched the sun go down. I was awoken in the night by a rusting noise and I was convinced that there was an animal in the tent after my food. I am not sure there was but I got back to sleep waking up three or four times. I packed up after breakfast of croissants but not coffee as the last nice strong black coffee did not agree with my tubes. More details can be provided by personal approach. I was on the bike by 10.20 bimbling down the twisty lane until joining the main road in the town nearby I could see that today was the day that the French all get in their cars and start their holiday. There were queues of traffic at most junctions. I rode a mixture of motorways (the limit is 81mph) and some lovely twisty roads giving Limoges a wide berth. I only stopped twice very briefly to drink some water and munch some cheese. No sitting down. I left at 10.20 and arrived at 4.20, so six hours on the bike, a little less with the stops and only 203 miles covered. I was slowed down a lot by the traffic but it could have been worse. The weather was bright to overcast.

However, arriving here was very welcome. After some twisty small roads my GPS took me up some steep paths to the campsite and I made a hesitant entry on a small inclined parking spot that took some reorientation of the bike to make work to get the side stand down and leave it. The site is Les Quatre Seasons. One of the owners is according to the website a chef so for 25 Euro they serve a three course meal which I have booked for tomorrow night. I am hoping that it is communal as well as delicious. The owner here is interesting a white haired English man (I presume) well spoken for such a role, with something of BBC’s reporter John Timpson, but more whimsical. Very welcoming after a moment or two trying to recollect who I was. There is no shop and I am under supplied with food but he provided a lovely bottle of local ish beer with a metal clip top unlike the distinctly iffy little bottle I got elsewhere. This site is unlike any other I’ve been in, it’s much larger than the previous two, but it’s spread out in an orchard with a number of pitches levelled out from a beautifully sloping area of five acres with apple trees. There is a Dutch family in a tent fairly near by by there is still a sense of space and some privacy. Belinda made her usual entry on sloping grass ending up just about under control not really where I wanted her to be, right in the middle of the pitch. But at least I get a chance to spend the evening and night very close to her. (I have to say that if no one else was around I would spend the time inspecting her very closely.) if no one else was on this site I would really appreciate riding around on this bumpy terrain, I would get a lot of confidence and fun and falling off on grass would hurt neither me nor her.

I’ve discovered that while my three legged camping stool is exquisitely uncomfortable(and won’t be taken again, thank you very much) these Touratech panniers make extremely comfortable seats, especially with the sheepskin on top – and tables. Tomorrow the weather forecast says it will reach 29degrees. It’s a shame there is no pool here. Apart from a three mile stroll down to the nearest town supermarket that closes at 12, I have no plans. Then Monday morning I ride about 75 miles over to my last campsite where the pitches are in a shady wood. It may be that I can extend my two nights to four and then go straight to La Rochelle on Friday. Tonight’s meal is going to be improvised. It’s a shame I have no meat but I have cheese and bread and olive oil and something sweet for later.

France is funny. The beauty is off the beaten track. The roads I have taken have mostly been through rather dusty unattractive towns and only occasionally through beautiful countryside. I don’t understand the French psyche if there is one- they have their obvious intellectuals but the strikes at Calais remind me that they have a real hard core aggressivity too, like their revolution, a mixture of rationality and beheadings.

31st July
The Next morning. The evening sun shines over the valley into this campsite and it is obvious that everyone here, not much more than a dozen people, mostly Dutch, the rest Brits, turn their chairs toward it to get the last beautiful hours of warm sun. I joined them in this sun worship sitting on a bench looking over a field, of something, I don’t have a clue what is growing. I never sleep that well camping but got up before anyone else at around 8. Where there are no small children there is definitely no early rising. My breakfast order of croissants arrived and I brewed up some acceptable coffee with my rudimentary equipment. Hmm. I’ve had enough of this tea malarkey. So now I am trying to connect to the wifi here without much success. It is warm already. With nowhere to get to today I am at a bit of a loss how to spend the day. Some people seem to stay here all day others get out and about. I think I need to unwind a bit, to get in to a day of doing nothing not even worrying about how I will get out, get to the next place etc etc. tonight I get my meal at a tent. Let’s see what that is like. The campsite owners tell everyone how good it is.

I loafed around reading, the Macfarlane book is improving, two women offered to lend me a bicycle so I could ride down the 3k to the town supermarket but it was going to close for lunch of course so I gobbled up my food bought yesterday (you see, I am right about always having food), had a snooze despite someone starting a strimmer and a cock crowing next to my tent and then cycled down the road to the unremarkable town where I bought some choice items that hopefully won’t melt during a day on the back of the bike. Then I got back rather hot from the effort and tried out the pool.

I am off further south tomorrow. My knowledge of the geography of this area is poor so I rely on the GPS to get me to the next campsite. It is 4 and 1/2 hours away according to it, so I will take the quick route, that’s a long time for a journey it says is about 180 miles. It has clouded over today, which is fine by me as long as it doesn’t rain.

30th July
First day not subject to the tyranny of motorways. Forty nine miles to lunch at Chalonnes a Loire. Nice small d roads.

Today has gone really well. All in all I enjoyed the last campsite. I opted in for pizza mainly to join the crowd along the long table. I supposed I had to be the oldest guest, the others were all couples with young children, intelligent, funny, nice company and I was so glad not to be camping with small children any more, one couple with two small girls, twins maybe who screamed and shouted at every opportunity. There is no privacy camping. Imagine washing two naked screaming toddlers with a strange man brushing his teeth a couple of feet away.

I think the success of these trips, finally, is in the detail. Yesterday evening before it got too late I plotted a route along small roads close to the Loire from where I stayed to where I am now, camping l’etournerie. But where that is I am not sure exactly. This site is sunny! And tucked away down a grass track with maybe six pitches on it and a small swimming pool. I think this is one of the adults only sites that I booked (actually planning this trip is rather hazy as it got mixed up with my medical tests when I was convinced I’d spend the summer in hospital having parts removed). It makes a difference – the planning not the surgery. The place really is quiet, just the conversation and splashing of three Dutch people in the pool just down there, the buzzing of bees and the crunching of eucalyptus leaves under my feet. The place is simple. So different from the theme park places I have stayed at or nearly stayed at. This is a nice recipe.

So today my mostly GPS-less route planning worked perfectly. I had a list of road numbers and turnings written on a sheet of paper in the tank bag and managed to get most of the way here like that. I stopped at Chalonnes a Loire at a large supermarket, the brand of which is new to me and had a salmon and prawn salad and bought some provisions (when there is an opportunity to get food I have realised you should always take it). I spent a good hour there. Eventually my trail ran dry and I opted to turn on the GPS and obey its suggestion for a blast down the motorway then back down some very smaller roads where I always wonder if the GPS really knows what it is doing. Eventually down a grassy track I found the place. Belinda did not like the uneven grassy ground, or rather I didn’t and sadly we can’t keep vehicles on site so she is just behind me out of site on the track. Now, I shall be complaining to Touratech because the handle on my brand new Zega Pro 2 pannier broke while I was carrying it. It was hugely heavy I admit, but I expected a bit more from this hard core brand.

I was too late (4.30 is too late) to order dinner. The site owners make three course meals and serve them at the campers’ tents. So I have ordered for tomorrow evening. I have also ordered pain au chocolate and croissants for breakfast. This morning breakfast was two beautiful moist pain au raisin but my attempt at tea was not good. Dried milk definitely does go off. I will return to coffee so at the U-shop supermarket I searched for a device to make coffee and only managed to get a tea strainer and some ground coffee so I will improvise. It will be better than tea with globules. Today’s ride I think was 144 miles. My average throttle position since I’ve had the bike is 11 percent and I’ve made 5 and a half thousand gear changes.