SATURDAY, 26th August 2006 – Epernay to Revin

If it’s Saturday, then this must be somewhere else

A bit of a chilly night, and we woke to tip tip tap little August showers. I was first to the showers today, and although they were reasonably effective, they were a bit scummy, and the shower head was too close to the wall, thus resulting in a 3 from me – mainly because I banged my elbow as I was washing my hair. Annie gave them 2, because they were lukewarm, and her button thing once again gave her about half the time I got.

We didn’t bother waiting for the bread man who cometh at 9.30, but instead drove to a nearby LeClerc, got some cash, and some croissants and some bread and some other stuff and spent 50-odd Euros. Would have been much cheaper to wait for the bread man. That’s what the big stores do, isn’t it? As you wander around, trying to find the 3 items you came for, they entice you to buy 23 items you didn’t come for, but you suddenly decide you can’t live without.

It started to rain more seriously, as we drove further North, in search of somewhere pretty by a river or something. On and on we drove, and down and down came the rain. There was always brighter skies to ahead and to the right, just as the road took a gentle turn to the left.

Another funny thing about the French – French men in particular. They have very little shame when it comes to the calls of nature. If we, on our journeys, happen to be caught a little short, then we jolly well cross our legs until we can find a suitable public convenience. If suffering from some internal complaint, and you really can’t wait until the appropriate time and location, then we stop, and hoppity-skip down banks, over fences, through woodlands, and behind trees, until any tiniest sight of us from either the road or any buildings is blotted out. Then, it’s out with the old fella, do what you need to do, and quickly away again, before the farmer comes with his gun, gun, gun. Hmmm - how our childhood forms us, eh?

Now your average French chappie, at the first sign of bladder pressure, it’s pull over to the side of the road, and let nature take its course, willy nilly, if you’ll excuse the phrase. The reason for mentioning this is 1) I’d noticed it occasionally on our travels, 2) a man was weeing by his car in the LeClerc car park, before he went into the store (where there were toilets), and 3) I saw a man doing the same up the wall of an Intermarche this afternoon. Are they weird, or are we just too inhibited? Should we just feel free enough to say: “Look, I need a wee, and I’m damned-well going to do it right now.”

The road into Revin was very steep – a 7% down gradient. “Use engine braking” it said, in four languages. I did. I was thankful to see that there were escape roads on this hill. I had in mind the lovely escape roads coming down into Dover – well-signposted, wide, and with lots of nice gravel to slow you down if you’re in trouble. The French version is somewhat different. There were two on this hill. The first one demanded that you negotiate several quite sharp and tricky hairpin bends on your way down, careering out of control. Okay, you’ve managed to do that, your speed is gathering all the time, and here comes the escape road – which is a narrow (i.e. narrower than the width of a standard car) piece of tarmac, around 10 metres long, with a stone wall which narrows the road down even further. So you’re crushed to death in your speeding vehicle. Either that, or the stone wall gives way, and you plunge to your death over the 500 foot cliff on the other side.

If you manage to see this, and fancy your chances with the hairpin bends still further down the hill, there is a proper escape road, with gravel and stuff. It does look frighteningly short, though. I would think that if you were in charge of an out-of-control vehicle at around eighty or ninety mph, you would be able to vault the gravel trap easily, and land God-knows-where on the other side.

Fortunately, we didn’t need either of the escape roads, but I made sure I kept in 3^rd or 4^th gear all the way down. We went a bit wrong in the village – Catherine said turn left, but she meant turn left in 30 metres, not at the temporary roundabout. Never mind, she re-routed us, and we got to the campsite.

Very, very empty. About eighty emplacements, of which I think around ten were being used. We were able to choose a nice pitch right next to the River Meuse, and we quickly got set up and put the kettle on.

After lunch, the bikes came off the back, and we cycled through town, by the river, got confused, came back through town, stopped at the Tourist Information place to get a map (which we should have done first, of course), and then had a good old cup of tea, just like proper British tourists. Then we opened the pink fizz. And that was about it for the day.