Pontorson, France

Things had started to look up. Back at the hostel last night I had met my two dormmates: an older chap from Guernsey who was motorbiking across France, and an Aussie bloke on a Eurotrip. They were both nice as pie and we nattered long into the evening about all sorts, from the reception we’d received from the French (Consensus? Frosty) to the Royal Family (Consensus? With a Royalist Channel Islander and a pro-Republic Aussie? No chance!).

I joined the Aussie for brekkie this morning along with a friendly woman from Belgium (the French speaking part), who somewhat surprisingly reported that she’d also experienced rudeness from the French on her holiday. Apparently the French tend to look down somewhat on the Belgians, and they are a popular butt of French jokes (much like the Irish used to be to the English).

Saying my farewells, I walked a deflated Ron to the adjacent park, where I had plenty of space to fix his puncture - or more accurately, to stare blankly at a mysterious object called a tyre lever and try to work out how on earth it should be used.

A little way into the repair, which proved very fruitful for the invention of new swearwords, a French chap walking his dog stopped to watch. If I had intended it to be a spectator sport, I would have placed an ad in the local paper and sold tickets, so when he spoke up I fobbed him off pretty quickly by telling him I didn’t speak French (in, er, French). Nonetheless, he lingered to monologue to himself about what he saw.

“Le vélo, c’est cassé?” was all I caught of his spiel. With hindsight, the kind which comes to you after a long bike ride, perhaps I should have congratulated him on his perceptiveness in noting that my bike was indeed broken, what with the tyre deflated and the wheel off. Pas de merde, Monsieur Sherlock!

I was expecting him to come out with further pearls of wisdom - perhaps a revelation about “la personne religieuse en Italie qui porte le grand chapeau blanc - il est catholique!” - but he wandered off, and at the right time as well, as during his presence a somewhat novel application for a tyre lever had occurred to me.

The Frenchman was, of course, just being curious, and no doubt would have helped had I asked him, but it was important to me that I could fix a puncture myself, as I didn’t know where else I might fall foul of one further on my journey where dog-walking help was thinner on the ground. It took me around three-quarters of an hour, but eventually I had Ron ready to go again, so I headed through Saint Malo once more, old people and children passing me with ease, and popped out at the Brittany coast. I pedalled along the grassy shoreline eastwards for twenty five miles towards my destination of Pontorson, just inside Normandy, through  pretty French villages on a beautifully fresh and sunny day. Three miles from the outskirts of Pontorson my legs gave way and I resorted to walking. On reaching the town sign, I mounted up, realising that John Wayne would never walk into town when he could ride - the hell he would! - and followed the signs for the Youth Hostel.

The Lonely Planet guidebook had assured me that the hostel was open all-year round, but a boss-eyed crone pottering about in the kitchen had other news. “C’est fermé,” she snapped. Welcome to Normandy!

I relocated to the Tourist Office, seemingly the only location in France that appeared to be happy to see tourists, and picked a budget hotel with private parking (indicating off-street shelter for Ron). The room was a sparse affair, but bursting with character: low bed, yellowing wallpaper, threadbare carpet, like something straight out of a film noir. It was perfect. I pushed the possible combinations of pate, camembert and baguette to their extremes for my dinner that evening, and retired exhausted - but possessing the secret of the tyre lever.

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