We have decided we need to go on holiday, even though it sort of already feels like we already are - it's nearly August and we in France and that's what you do. Our new friends scoffed at the idea of our plan to try to see le Tour's Tormulet stage without camping out 3 days in advance (with a baby), so instead we head out on our bikes to the haute Languedoc, a hilly region to the east of Toulouse.
As we were packing, la femme de la château drove past in a sports car. Having yet to see the owners come out in the same car twice, we are beginning to assume they have a BMW showroom up there.
We passed the time of day for a while, trying to avoid the topic of carbon guilt, when another lady called from the gate.
The newcomer explained that she was looking for her cat, who had been lost for five days - which seemed fair enough, so la femme de la château let her in and left the lady with Rosie and I.
As she sped away in one of her many sportscars, cat lady explained without blinking that a medium had contacted the cat, and that it was in a wooded place. We proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes using the search for the cat as an excuse to look around the grounds of the château (which we'd yet to dare to do).
Failing to find any sign of the ghost-cat, we bid farewell to the lady and set off. My bike was configured with the handing characteristics of a container ship, a steel touring bike with full panniers and a baby Chariot. I expressed a strong, uncharacteristic preference for a flat ride - so we headed east along the canal du Midi (which joins the Atlantic to the Mediterranean).
The riding was comically idyllic, sunflower fields, boats and rolling hills in the distance - but the weight of the bike made it feel like a constant 5% grade. I lamented over not having a power meter so I could prove to Rosie (who was on a carbon fiber racing bike), why I was finding it so hard...
With some minor diversions to avoid the dirt sections (which for Sam, already unimpressed, would have been the last straw), we found a campsite (having ridden about 75km, and deciding that 50km with a baby would probably have been enough for everyone).
Le camping was a field manned by a kindly elderly chap, who drove around in a golf cart constantly carrying a cigarette between the little fingers of his left hand. The emplacement was 10€, but his business strategy was clearly to sell marked up bottles of Rosé, which was trivially effective. He made us a salad which was significantly more appealing than our planned meal of rehydrated pasta. I fear this decadent French camping will make us soft...
As we were packing, la femme de la château drove past in a sports car. Having yet to see the owners come out in the same car twice, we are beginning to assume they have a BMW showroom up there.
We passed the time of day for a while, trying to avoid the topic of carbon guilt, when another lady called from the gate.
The newcomer explained that she was looking for her cat, who had been lost for five days - which seemed fair enough, so la femme de la château let her in and left the lady with Rosie and I.
As she sped away in one of her many sportscars, cat lady explained without blinking that a medium had contacted the cat, and that it was in a wooded place. We proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes using the search for the cat as an excuse to look around the grounds of the château (which we'd yet to dare to do).
Failing to find any sign of the ghost-cat, we bid farewell to the lady and set off. My bike was configured with the handing characteristics of a container ship, a steel touring bike with full panniers and a baby Chariot. I expressed a strong, uncharacteristic preference for a flat ride - so we headed east along the canal du Midi (which joins the Atlantic to the Mediterranean).
The riding was comically idyllic, sunflower fields, boats and rolling hills in the distance - but the weight of the bike made it feel like a constant 5% grade. I lamented over not having a power meter so I could prove to Rosie (who was on a carbon fiber racing bike), why I was finding it so hard...
With some minor diversions to avoid the dirt sections (which for Sam, already unimpressed, would have been the last straw), we found a campsite (having ridden about 75km, and deciding that 50km with a baby would probably have been enough for everyone).
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