Monday 21st June
St Germain-sur-Ay to BricquebecHoorah, finally a change in the weather and the wind has dropped. We have found this past 5 days a real challenge and I don’t think it is just because we are heading for home and dragging our heels a bit. We have been riding quite hard and both know what being saddle sore means. Everything is beginning to break and my sunglasses fell apart yesterday. This might not sound a very big deal, but you have to wear them all the time in case traffic passes and flick stones into your eyes. We stopped in La Haye du Puits and a charming optician put them back together again for no charge. We have had specs mended in each country and not one person has charged for this which is most kind. We wonder if it would be the same in England, you would probably be told to leave them and come back in a week.
The old railway route took us around the side of Mont Castre, and then onto the Sensurieure bog which is a vast area of ........... bog - so pretty flat.

From the bridge at Pierrepont

The bridge at Pierrepont overlooks this and had a viewing point, under which there was a lovely looking river with some nicely mown grass along the banks. It looked the perfect picnic spot but 20 feet below with no access, so we sat on the gravel on the edge of the bridge which was pleasant enough. Needless to say, after finishing and leaving, 20 yards on, we passed the sign to the picnic area below but only signed from the opposite direction.
We didn’t have anywhere to stay so on arrival headed straight for the Office du Tourisme, which was closed and wasn’t opening until tomorrow. We were just standing outside wondering what to do when one of the staff walked by and offered to open up and help us – which she did and in no time we were booked into a B&B just down the road.

Part of the castle at Bricquebec

and the crepe stall for the bands.

The town has a spectacular castle which is almost intact and made a very good backdrop for the midsummer’ night live music festival which most French towns celebrate with bands in every bar and corner of the town. We dropped our bags off at the B&B and were quickly back in the town square to watch the bands (3 in this town) setting up and starting to play. We had settled into a bar where a man with a violin was tuning up when he was joined by another with a drum and a guitar. They then began to play some sort rather monotonous Celtic chant accompanied by a very loud thumping on the drum which upset the baby in the pram beside us and would if we’d stayed probably driven us mad too. So we went across the square for some supper in a brasserie recommended by our hostess and run by a frantically harassed Frenchman who had such a large tummy that we expected him to have a heart attack at any moment.



Afterwards we went to a different bar where Les Pirates – a classic 1960’s rock and roll band complete with shaved heads, pony tails and stomachs to prove the existence of 30+ years of the ‘rock and roll’ lifestyle. They were brilliant except for when the singer forgot the words and they had to play the chorus a couple more times while he worked out where he was on the song sheet!!

It wasn’t quite the opera I had been so wanting to hear around Europe, but it was really good fun and we decided that it was a perfect way to spend pretty much our last night of the trip as we have only 20 k’s to do tomorrow.