Blog5. Nous Roulons

Hi,

Au Cafe avec cidre.  Hot jackets!

This is the group steaming in the café after cycling through heavy showers all morning.  As we enjoyed the local cider, the simple but beautifully fresh and tasty lunch served speedily by a friendly waitress, Neil drily remarked. ‘This pilgrimage is hell, isn’t it!’  It brought the house down.

The countryside here is very green mild gently undulating, plenty of hedgerows and cows. It was a bit like parts of the West Country but occasionally there were reminders we were in France.

   

La Route Verte

Ignoring the showers, everyone really enjoyed today largely along ‘La Route Verte’, an old railway track now a smoothly-surfaced cycle path.  The wind was from the NW and we were riding SE.   It was perfect to continue all those great conversations started the day before one-to-one. Interlaced with fascinating life stories and questions for bike ‘anoraks’ like what is the best tyre for touring we discussed challenges reflecting our shared values and concerns. Is it really possible to transition to a low carbon electricity supply without nuclear power? (Germans say yes). How do you make a carbon foot printing accessible accurate enough and actually effective at making behaviour, with what other element? How do you broach the subject of the massive carbon footprint of flying without inducing negative guilt feelings and no useful outcome? 

Again the best thing about this journey are the companions.  But I suppose we haven’t had time to find each other’s annoying habits!

Here are a few more post cards from the schools. (For some reason they are appearing at the top of the post.  IT!?)

Mark Hancock