Il quinto giorno — Three Men and a Tent

After yesterday’s ridonculous shenanigans where we pushed ourselves right to the vomity edge, we are all hoping for a much easier day today. Having checked all available maps, several times, so confident are we that what lies ahead is manageable that we even allow ourselves the luxury of a lie in till 7 o clock!
We’ve decided its best for all three of us to check the route before we head off and we agree in committee that today looks like something between 48 miles (garmin, which lies!!!) and 62 miles (google, which also lies but perhaps not as much). If we can manage the same sort of pace we did yesterday we should arrive early afternoon and so spurred on by the possibility of a more manageable mileage and a sensible finishing time we set off.

It’s fair to say though that there is a collective and perhaps unsurprising lack of enthusiasm this morning to get moving and we manage to get all of nearly half mile before we stop at a supermarket to grab some food. In fact as supermarkets go its decidedly lacking in anything you might really call food and so we stop again another half mile down the road at a boulangerie for some “Dan au chocolat”......time elapsed 28 minutes , distance travelled 1.2 miles!!

Eventually we do get going proper and head off into the now quite lumpy countryside interspersed with the odd “pique nique” and our first visit to a cafe for a swift cafe au lait.

The problem with being tired (and it’s really hard to describe quite how tired we each are but trust me, it’s REALLY tired!) is that my already somewhat doubtful memory skills (pillow anyone?) have totally turned to porridge. Marc and I had such a good old laugh today about something earlier that at the time was just the most hysterically funny thing ever and both of said “oh well that has to go in the blog” and honestly, I kid you not neither of us now have a clue what it was! Sorry readers, whatever it was may well have been the highlight of this blog but now it’s I am afraid gone forever.

There is still an unhelpfully large amount of climbing to be done (we total 4500 for the day which is like cycling up Snowdon, cruising back down to sea level and then cycling half way back up…which admittedly would be a very weird thing to do!)

When we do arrive at Le Village de Meuniers campsite (super posh, feels like a should wear a bow tie with my bib shorts!) after a breezy walk in the park 63 miles at the frankly amazing time of 315pm there is a French family at the desk and it’s clear, well at least it seems clear from the way they are jabbering on, that we will have to wait a little longer for camping nirvana and an ice cold beer which I can now see taunting us in a nearby fridge....I have no idea what they were asking but it seemed was endless. When I say this out loud, rather rudely with hindsight, the couple in front of us reveal they are English by inviting us to cut in front of them. I am a bit ashamed to be honest and apologise obviously but they are totally lovely about it and insist that our need is greater than theirs....judging by the state of us I think to be honest that was probably a pretty fair assessment.....and so we leap at the chance to jump the queue. As if that wasn’t mortifying enough they then start to ask us about what we are doing and why and they even ask for details so they can donate. Fortunately I have carried eleventy billion of our very stylish (although I do say so myself!) business cards with us and so I dig one out and hand it over. (Hi, If you are reading this now just to say again sincere apologies for pushing in and thank you so much for showing an interest and your kindness we really, really appreciate it!)

The campsite truly is beautiful and I cannot contain my excitement at arriving at such a lovely place and still feeling vaguely human….it has to be grass angels. I mean check out the luxury showers for heavens sake....it’s a Christmas miracle.! It is by some margin the best site we have visited on our three trips and it’s just what we needed exactly when we needed it.

I also couldn’t help noticing this place as we head into town in search of refreshments....”do you what I really, really fancy for dinner tonight? A Ted Burger” said no one ever!

For the record we have now covered just over 450 miles in five days. I know many of you reading this now will have already made a donation or supported us at one of our bake sales or 24 hour cycle rides. We are genuinely so grateful but we do still need your support. Please share our story with your friends, family, work colleague, heck even total strangers and just maybe they might be inspired to donate. Thank you so much