Life Cycle
I was up a ladder doing a spot of painting in the picturesque town of Gourgé. It was one of the many bank holidays in May, and the one day of the month it didn't rain. I was on a relatively busy road, for France; a car would pass every ten minutes, as well as a constant stream of cyclists who were following the river Thouet bike trail, which got me thinking. Back at the compound I announced to Anna, my wife, the plan for us to cycle from Parthenay to Thouars, at which I saw her rolling her eyes. To be fair to her I do have a tendency to come up with ludicrously ambitious (often expensive) plans which, when reality sinks in, become scaled down dramatically. My ability to underachieve has always filled me with a sense of pride (for my O levels I got straight Cs across the board). Our bikes had not been ridden for two years, so I hauled them from the shed, blasted all the bat poo off them with my trusty Karcher, pumped the tyres up and oiled the rusty chain with some chainsaw oil. A...