All Dummies Together

A huge warm chocolate croissant and a large hot chocolate for breakfast hits the spot when you have a mile long steep hill to climb first thing on the day's cycle run.
It was a test of endurance in the hot sun and there was no stopping allowed to catch my breath and wonder what on earth I was putting myself through......his Lordship is a hard task master when it comes to endurance.

The maddening thing about these hills is that you no sooner get to the top than there is a downhill which you know you're going to have to climb on the way home.

All the villages we passed through had put on a show of bicycles decorated with flowers and life size stuffed dummies, and the villagers were out in force to cheer us along. My blip is of a collection of the mannequins in the village of Chatillon-sous-les- Cotes.

It's difficult to imagine how many cyclists were out today.There were hordes of them: pelatons in team colours and others in ones and twos. Needless to say the French in their colourful tops were in the majority, but there were teams of English cyclists on racing bikes with skinny tyres swishing past us.
Our bikes are like carthorses compared to race horses, built for sturdiness and load bearing, and not for speed.

Back in Verdun, we celebrated with beers followed by coffee and cake. I suppose there will be no deficit in calories today despite the effort.

I discovered last night when I went to charge my camera that I had left an integral adaptor at home.My charger has the US terminals and the connector I use to convert it to the UK ones which I then fit into the connection for the French two pin plug sockets is languishing in Edinburgh.

You could say we're not having much success with cameras at the moment. I shall have to be very selective with my photography.