Lying in my bed in the dodgier side of Pau, I could see a watercolour postcard of a French beach. It made me think, my first trip to France was made up of postcard destinations Paris, the loire, nice, this trip is more like the ‘real France’s (whilst still only scratching the surface. That is not to say there haven’t been beautiful destinations, we have just seen a lot of the inbetween that holds france together, and not all of it you’d want to slap a stamp on. More of an adventure than a holiday one might venture.  One such moment was earlier that day when I took my shoe off and found my sock covered in apricot jam, on closer inspection of my shoe, a dend slug, langourishly rolled down the inner and ever so slowly plopped at my feet. There was some disgusted dancing after that image complete with “errrghhh” pitch increasing for potency.

We rode on the wings of the storm and only made it to the shelter of Pau perhaps half an hour before sheets of rain and hail crashed to cobblestones. On these nights a bed and a roof almost bring tears of joy.

We had ummed and ared until midday about leaving, the forecast was ominous and last night had been a thrilling taste of nature’s power. We decided to leave under grey skies, packing up just as blue sky and sun peaked from behind clouds. By the time we were on the bike it was glorious sunshine, almost too hot to ride. Oh well we had made our decision, we rode on. Dylan showed me a charming potager he had discovered on a walk and watching butterflies in flowers any disappointment at leaving a glorious day faded. We were zipping along green canopied paths, beside a river under aweinspiring mountains, it was not a day wasted in transit.

We stopped at a picnic ground by the water for lunch and suddenly a gracie dog appeared all by herself without an owner in sight. She was a bit suspicious of us but allowed pats as she shuffled.up picnic scraps from the grass, her reticence reminding us even more of our border collie at home. She carried on with her snuffling, perhaps it was her daily expedition from the farm cleaning up after careless tourists.

Then as we rode out of the hills passed a glorious mineral blue lake into that nothingness of the inbetween (which has nothing on that of America) we saw the clouds chasing and felt pretty pleased with ourselves for choosing correctly afterall.