Who’s in control…?

Tuesday is market day.

Unexpectedly it covered the whole street and offered a plethora of French gastronomy from local unpasteurised cheese, stinky sausage and foie gras to Calvados, Crepes and a massive pan of authentic Spanish Paella! 

I opted for a coffee and sat down to watch the proceedings.

Question….Why have folk started to carry domestic animals around?

It seems bizarre to me that a perfectly fit border collie needs to be manhandled or a skanky ginger Tom carted round in a wicker basket strapped to your chest??… where will it stop?…will they start to fetch other pets out for a look round the market?…a tortoise in a harness perhaps, a ferret in a specially designed compartment in your handbag or maybe a gongoozling goldfish carried aloft in a bowl on a turban? 

We must persevere with the trend until it becomes a little too passé I guess….I digress as I really just don’t know ‘who’s in control?’.

To ease the pain in my brain I opt to head for the sea for a swim. The temperature of the water took my mind off the wonderings so I returned to the gite to catch up with the boys over lunch.

While they went off for the afternoon on the 🚴 🚴 I opted for an amble around the harbour and then settled down in a quiet brasserie in the square with a chilled bottle of ‘Muscadet’ and imagined I was cycling down the Loire Valley….also a bit easier on the arse after 3 days in the saddle!

Who’s in Control was a song by indie band British Sea Power…just to wake you up and get u 🤔thinking!

A Bicyclette…(Batteries not included)

Todays ride was off to have a look at the famous carpet town of Bayeaux. 

Pongo’s tours had the riding gadget set to record and as soon as Buster Gonad had got back with his unfeasibly large baguette and fresh croissants from the artisan boulanger we were ready to cock our legs over the saddle for day 3 in sunny Normandy.

We stopped off on the way at the coiffure for a morning coffee and continued off down the lovely rural backroads arriving at Bayeux for lunch.

The Impressive Cathedral, where Norman the Conk started his big -nose crusade from, was where we parked the pushrods. He was a famous fella round these parts for the Frexit rebellions of 1066 when he came over to the UK to rape, pillage and take our jobs but it turned out not to be as good as he thought after he got into an altercation with a bloke called Harold who he stabbed in the eye and then thought, “bugger this for a game of soldiers”, and returned home to open a carpet shop.

To be honest, the honour of being the first carpet in the world to be invented was a petite disappointment, it was a lot smaller than as it’s made out to be in the brochures so I’d go as far as to say that it’s more like an ‘off-cut’.

After more poignant remembrance of the fallen at Bazenville with the war graves, sadly some without names or identities, it was time to head home. 

With heads down and pedalling hard we were blowing out of our arses up the penultimate hill on the last leg when a rather large lady in her 80’s rang her 🛎️ and with a cheerful “Merci “ and a rather large smile blew us all off and shot off into the distance with the power of the 🪫 on her bicyclette…

…Oh, how we laughed!!

Just enjoy the old French track about bicycles and move on ….

‘Milord’, or ‘Shadow of the street’…

Sunday is meant to be a day of rest but we have stuff to see and do so after the warm pan au chocolat from the local ‘boulangerie’ we decided to go the other way up the coast today. 

Past Juno beach where the Canadian allies landed in terrible weather back in fateful June 1944. On past the USA landings at ‘Gold’ beach we continued riding in the sunshine heading for Arromanches-les-bains overlooking the remains of the artificial ‘Mulberry Harbour’.

It was a hot day in the saddle so it was nice to find some shade in the shadow of the street behind a bar!

So with 50km yesterday and another 30km today that equates to about 235ml of Sudocrem left in the pot…

Todays track comes at u from the hit parade of 1959 pop-pickers…Milord or Ombré de la rue is a great French classic from the very famous voice of Edith Piaf.

Laisse tomber les filles…

The morning view of the river Liane yesterday from the Ibis was a good start to the day. Then it was off over the Pont du Normandie to the lovely Honfleur for a walk round the town.

Arriving later in the afternoon at our gite in Courseulles sur mer it just left the Friday big shop and the day was complete.

Todays ride was south along the DDay beaches was actually quite poignant. Difficult to comprehend the atrocities that were encountered on the beaches with regular reminders by way of memorials of respect to the fallen from combined allied forces from all over the world. We rode along the whole coast to Ouistreham.

A leisurely lunch was a big pot of Ouistreham mussels et vin before heading down to view the famous Pegasus bridge. Here we had a short trip in a yellow submarine to have a quick look at the Titanic that was sunk by the Germans just off the coast of France. Thankfully, we survived and headed back for a well earned 🍺.

France Gall livens up a Saturday night with a jaunty little infectious ditty that I have loved since I first heard it in 1964.

Joe Le Taxi…

Operation Overboard is now in full swing, Iv packed up my troubles in an old kit bag along with a plentiful supply of Yorkshire tea bags, 3 rusty bicycles and an unfeasibly large pot of Sudocrem to apply to any war wounds or inflammation of the ‘Pomme de Terre’s’ that we may encounter along the cobbled streets of Normandyland.

Iv cunningly set my ‘Out of Office’ for some other bugger to answer for my mistakes and it’s time to leave ‘Terrazza Negroni’ (as the mooring is affectionately referred to as ) as ‘Joe Le Taxi’ Aka Pongo is ‘en-route’ on his way down from the outer reaches of Jockland, arriving around ‘le petit dejeuner’ time to pick me up.

With a bit of Vera Lynne playing on the wireless to get us in the holiday mood we set off next to liberate ‘Buster’ from the clutches of ‘Lost’A’CockHall’ and then the 3 amigo’s are united to fight again and we can finally set off together on the long and torturous journey down the M6 ‘dans le voiture’ to French France….well, until one of us needs a piss stop at the next services….

To mark the occasion, a fitting poem has been penned by Siegfried Sassoon, the late WW2 poet laureate….and it goes like this…

Gazzer, Pongo and Buster are setting sail to Calais,

To the gallic chants and cheers of…”Allez, Allez, Allez”,

But we know nowt about France,

Are too old for romance,

So we will liberate the wine,

And sit and play dominoes to pass by the time

Over the Dartford bridge then we reach the White cliffs of Dover where we find that there are no bluebirds left due to Avian Influenza but plenty of scraggy seagulls. Before the stench of seagull excretion becomes overpowering we get directed to embark an earlier ferry called the ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’ then we are off before they have even closed the back doors… ‘tout suite’…!

The goofy little 14 year old, Vanessa Paradis had this popular hit in 1987.

Probably working in a chip shop just outside Paris now…

Ca plane pour moi…

Packing for such an excursion isn’t a thing that one must take lightly as one must carefully plan for all eventualities….this is todays job pre-departure day!

With the vaccinations for diphtheria, typhoid and blue tongue sorted weeks ago it left only the athletic supports and the verruca cream to add to the wash bags.

With no baggage limits to consider the hefty piles are laid out in priority order and folded neatly and packed in strict accordance to the official list.

…Ninja barbecue, leopard~skin thong, stunt kite, cheese knife, dominoes, tin opener, snorkel, handkerchief, travel pillow, new undercrackers, a vintage cravat, umbrella and a large packet of Rennies (in case we end up eating their food), in the first pile, then some bright summer clothes, hats and evening wear and finally a bag with the liquids, jewellery and a funky beach ball volleyball set.

As the camera phone was invented in France I intend to take mine too to get a few snaps along the way and I may even pack a selfie stick so that I can walk round especially crowded places wafting the thing in front of me while posing and posturing on every street corner with no fear of looking like a right touristic tosser…

It seems perfectly acceptable now in society to stand in everyone’s way trying to capture your newly injected Botox inflamed lips 👄 while pouting seductively and attempting to look magnificent, simultaneously clutching a half glass of Prosecco, with the wind in your hair generated from brandishing a new set of massive swishing eye lash enhancements for the sole purpose of getting a ‘thumbs up’ on your sad social media ‘Instant’I’mANob’agram’ account….

We will not be tolerating that kind of behaviour in our group…

Ok, so they were from Belgium but it’s near enough and the words are all in French so sing along in English if u prefer as Iv included a translation if u can’t speak da lingo…

Broadsword calling Danny Boy…

So I’m back on the blog…it’s been a while since my last confession so I thought I’d turn over a new leaf, pull out the cork and update the damn thing. I have to confess that these musings don’t come easy…well the musings do, it’s just the application and delivery that is often lacking and problematic.

Looking back I see that there seems to be a massive void of laziness since March 22 so you will be initially pleased (I hope) that I’m not now deceased but have of course been living this charming life to the full, obviously within budget and taking into consideration the high cost of living due to the Brexit/Covid/war in Uganda/lack of pay/train strikes….do I need to continue?…I’m still here, still grumpy and still recalcitrant….expect nothing less il mio amici!

So what have we learned since then? According to my Google timeline interspersed with random photos, apparently iv been to such far flung places such as Middlewich to drink with dancing crows, Folegandros to visit white churches, Glasgow to see Richard Hawley, Porto to drink err….Port and then throw in a few fast trains along the way to Lisbon, Valenthia and Madrid and then, of course, it would be wrong to not to mention hi-life highlights such as Morcambe, Harrogate and Bangor!…

But here we are now, June 2023, with Andromeda still on the home mooring, nestling amongst the summer blooms, while I’m packing the suitcase full of euros to hit the D-Day beaches of Normandy in a few days with the raw excitement and intense anticipation reminiscent of a Canadian paratroopers horse circa. 1945….yes, I’m chomping at the bit!

I know what you’re thinking 🤔…How brave, is Normandy safe now?

Well, of course things have moved on a bit since we fell out a bit with old Billy Big nose who, on his conk-quest, invaded our habitual land of hope and glory and jabbed our heroic Harold in the eye in 1066 but things are more settled now and the French have mellowed into really nice guys now and apparently have an ok rugby team.

Yes, they still are rumoured to eat frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails whilst playing accordion and riding bicycles up the rue du boulangerie but what’s not to like about that? 

So, let’s go and see what lies beneath the stereotypical iconic stripey Breton shirt and the elegant whiff of garlic and ‘erb aftershave (pour homme)

Let’s not judge til we get there….Bon Voyage!

As ever, a jaunty and topical tune will title or accompany the daily blogosphere following this trial…Bon appetite!