Impressive...

We reached the first feed stop this morning and were met with the best chocolate eclaires I've ever tasted. They went down a treat with the boys and girls who'd stopped after a few tricky hills coming out of Calais.

When they'd all pootled off on their way, Sarah shouted at Gareth (above) cause he was meant to be at the start of the pack. He left sharpish and indeed he couldn't have been away ten minutes before we got in the car and tried to catch the first ones who'd left early to stop them at the second feed stop. There was talk of a time trial so I was to be deposited at the side of the road and check the times at the start. We caught the first boys and only after that did we catch Gareth. He wasn't even breaking a sweat! He must have cycled like the absolute clappers to make it that far ahead in such a short time.

We were further impressed when he waved us on and then realised there was a car coming in the opposite direction so he literally hopped onto the gravel verge, no slowing down, no messing, just straight on there and kept pedalling. Hardcore!

Talking of hardcore, nice car boss won the time trial, smashing the second team by at least 50 seconds coming in at 19.04 for 10k.

Needless to say Gareth's time was 16 minutes or thereabouts... harder than hardcore!

Top day... lunch was odd... not to mention the toilet facilities on the little campsite in the middle of nowhere but we ate, albeit at around 4pm which appears to be becoming my norm and then went down into Amiens to have dinner and an early night. Famous last words. The countryside is adorable, with so many windmills and rapeseed fields. France is quite simply just lovely. I think I may need to bring Budy sometime!

I'm lucky if I've been in bed before 1am... in my Mum's words, I'm like a half shut knife. Still... I can sleep when I'm dead. I have no idea what day it is but I know I'm back blipping from a couple of days behind.

I can't say it enough though, Ary has been and is being an absolute star. He's calm when I'm stressing, he's capable when I'm not and he's laughing at my CDO. It's all good.

I'll try and do tomorrow's blip the day after tomorrow which should make it today! Thanks for keeping up, thanks for your donations, I'll try and get an up-to-date count for you soon.