Thursday, August 25th Day Nine – St Hermine to Niort
Once again the high spot of the day for me was the early morning run.
As the heat is now up to 35 c in the afternoon we plan to leave our hotel early every morning and catch the cooler morning breezes, this means that before I start my day in the car I have to get up just after six to get any chance of exercise – and the days are getting shorter so I crunched across the gravel of the lovely Manoir de Ponsay in the half darkness this morning.
Fabulous ! What a great experience feeling the sun get up after me and see one of the few remaining fields of yellow sunflowers try to turn upwards to greet the new dawning day! Unfortunately I hadn’t taken a camera with me to try and catch them in that early morning light. I also engaged with a few Charolais calves who took an interest in this strange creature out and running at so early an hour and finally tried to reason with two outraged dogs guarding a neighbouring farm who warned me off with great gusto, subsided with a sense of ‘job done’ when I had passed them, but felt called upon to redouble their efforts when I had the affrontery to run past again on my return journey!
After running I eat huge breakfasts, lots of fruit, but also far too much delicious French bread! So does Husband, but he is certainly working it all off with 60k of cycling today. We don’t stop for lunch – just an early dinner and back to Blogging before going to bed with the next episodes in the lives of Lenu and Lila , who have now become my companions in my head as well as on the pages of the third book. ( I think most people who have read Elena Ferrante will understand this reference – and if you haven’t I highly recommend the Neopolitan trilogy – now quartet – one for each door panel in the car!)
The D148 is not an ideal road for a cyclist, far too many ‘camions’ hurtling down single track roads to be anything but terrifying for me but Husband likes the smoother road surface and seems unfazed by the traffic so the day passed without incident until we arrived at our hotel in Niort. I can’t recommend The Central Hotel on rue 24 Febbria …like Blain it was closed, nobody there except a couple of guests with nothing better to do than lounge in the reception. One of them kindly tried to call the padrona but she evidently just confirmed the notice on the door that the hotel was full. We called Booking.com who confirmed that we would not be charged, especially as we called back twice just to check that we really were unwanted guests!
We are now happily settled in a Best Western – a far superior establishment!
Early start tomorrow for another 50 k to Matha – or thereabouts …. Yet again the hotel is 20k from the finishing post! I feel like Le Grande Maulnes – always seeking a long remembered distant dream.
