Le Regime

My French volumptious lycra look has succeeded, where other means have failed, in making me address my eating habits.

And so today while his Lordship scoffed a slice of chocolate biscuit cake, I sat and nursed my paltry cup of tea, while trying not to watch him devouring every morsel with gusto...... Ok, he shaved a centimetre off the end for me in case anyone was looking and thinking what a miserable companion he was.

Now 5 hours later, I sit here at the computer feeling very hungry after a lunch of a banana and a satsuma.
The glasses of wine which have accompanied every meal for some time, are banned and life will be a path of denial for the benefit of image.
As the French saying goes-'Il faut souffrir pour etre belle'.

Yesterday was marathon of endurance, although there were periods when I thought that sitting in one spot with nothing to do but gaze out of a bus window or doze was actually quite acceptable.

We had packed our bikes and got on the bus at 11pm continental time on Sunday night in Verdun and been driven to Calais where we caught a ferry at about 6am GMT yesterday morning.
The crossing was calm and there was a lovely sunrise, so it was only after we reached Dover and the white cliffs that things started slowing down to a crawl and going pear shaped......... (absolutely nothing to do with the lycra look)

Certainly there were people and bikes to be dropped off en route northwards, but the bummer was the M25 with its roadworks and Monday morning traffic.

We changed buses at Northampton (where on earth is Northampton?) and got on with our transferred bikes to the bike bus from Bordeaux. This was considered a good move in that it would take the M5 &M6 rather than the M1 and would be quicker.

Wrong! We hit both these dire motorways at tea time and crawled again, taking in, of all off -route places, Manchester airport to drop off some more cyclists.

By this time the on board loo was blocked ( no, don't ask) and so we had unscheduled stops at various service stations as and when nature called.

Once on the M74, the driver, (first day with the bike bus company!) decided he didn't want to chance the narrow, windy Biggar route to Edinburgh from Abington, so we had to continue all the way to Hamilton before taking the M8 home.

Result: arriving at Regent Road in Edinburgh at 11:30 pm and reaching home at midnight after 25 hours travelling.

Still, the experience is already fading and all in all it is a much easier way of getting to the continent with a bike than by train and crossing London with panniers.