Sunday, April 16, 2006

Thursday 13th April - Wanadon't

My bicycle has been eating my legs. It has teeth, and they bite me. Yesterday the outer chainring sliced up my right leg while I was trying to manoeuvre myself next to dgym in a parking space. Today I was leaning against it, slipped, and the bicycle and I toppled over, leaving five scrape-marks across my left shin. Add to that the bramble scratches I got while clambering into a ditch to attend to lavatory matters, and my legs are looking a bit beaten up. I have also been beaten quite severely around the head by the Freckle Monster. I haven't had proper freckles for years, and I'm pretty sure I never had this many.

We hit a monster hill today around Auberville, as the road forced us away from the coast - unfortunately there were no jolly little Frenchmen to jump out and cheer us on. Perhaps it only happens when the sun's out. It was a lovely long descent back down to the sea, but we didn't feel like going much further after that.

This morning we got to the post office, bought an internet card and had the world's most awkward internet session ever. It was an eMac with a very funny keyboard - some of the letters were swapped around or moved up or down a row. Being a touch typist, I was lost - dgym's a hunt-and-peck kind of guy, so he was OK and seemed to get used to it very quickly. And, it being a Mac, everything was a bit strange anyway.

This evening, we almost got our wifi - we got to Blonville sur Mer, just short of our target of Deauville, and decided we'd done enough for the day. Questioning at the tourist office for wifi hotels proved fruitful, and after much phoning around, we were directed to a hotel just a few doors down. The nice lady gave us the WEP key and allowed dgym to fiddle around with the wifi box (a Wanadoo, of course) until he was blue in the face, but with no luck. Still, it's a nice enough place, we have a sea view, and I'm hoping I can persuade dgym to come out for a paddle in a little while.

Distance so far is 319 miles - we've been on the road for a week.

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