13 August 2005

Tom's tent, his pannier's and the first of many bottles of wine. Having left behind us the incomparable delights of the Boulougne-sur-Mer Novotel with its lingering aroma of fetid water and astonishing resemblance to a prison we hot footed it south and Dieppe with its harbour it was then on to Normandy. Our desire to head south was so great that we averaged over 70mph on N roads and consequently arrived in Calvados towards mid afternoon in a state of utter exhaustion. When planning this trip we had originally planned to be, by the end of the first day, somewhere near St Nazaire. Needless to say, as the day wore on and we became more and more tired, the final destination changed a number of times. Initially we decided that perhaps around Angers was more realistic then, a few hours later, we decided upon Alençon and eventually gave up near Argentan. We rode aimless around the countryside for a while with the afternoon sun setting, the shadows lengthening and us maintaining the all important attitude of the relaxed motorcycle traveller; going with the flow and seeing where we ended up. A short while later as the tiredness set in, our backsides moving rapildy into a world of numbness from sitting on the saddle for so long and our stomachs slowing starting to digest ourselves we stumbled on a campsite. Our tent was pitched between two Dutch families complete with socks and sandle wearing parents and teenage children, Across from us an English family sitting drinking tea and beer alternately. We drank wine. The tents us I unpacked the gleaming new petrol stove. Tom drank more wine. I tossed the instructions for using the stove aside with a contemptuous geesture and turned on the tap to the petrol can and unleashed the lighter. Seconds later and maintaining a calm facade I grabbed the nearest water source in a desparate attempt to out out the burning grass and the towering inferno like stove. The proximity of the stove (and therefore the flames) to my tent made me wary about continuing to cook. I ate my dinner cold and instead turned to the wine.