Day 17 and rest in Chalon sur Saone which is a pleasant town and it's sunny. After Farmer Bonwell's departure the weather declined rapidly. As I finally left the Loire to join the Central Canal I also moved into an area of France that is in post industrial renovation phase, to put it kindly. Lots of old mills and factories. The whole landscape was saturated after the very wet winter, flooding everywhere. At some points the canal path was surrounded by water and ...

Dinner with Monsieur Bonwell. Wednesday ( May Day) was a tough day, it rained all day and I mean rained. Thunder,lightening you name it. Good to see the weather treats French national holidays the same as it does UK. The only time it stopped was five minutes after I arrived at my very nice Chateau. I was the only guest but later on a well dressed gentleman appeared. He was from Paris and spoke English well so we got talking. Monsieur Bonwell was an intriguing ...

Days ten and eleven. Beaugency to sully and then from Sully to Sancerre. 53m/85 k on each day taking cum to 530 miles / 848 km. I'm writing this in a rainy Sancerre on my rest day. Better it rains when I'm not cycling but unfortunately it looks to be likely to take two days for the weather system to clear through. I'm going to get wet on Wednesday. The trip from Beaugency to Sully was again into a headwind and often along raised roads on the levee. Flat, windy ...

Day seven was a rest day in very warm Saumur. Overnight the temperature dropped 15c and the wind turned to the north east. Not good news as that was directly into my face. On Friday I did a very (too) long day of 75 m/120 k. Got lost as I switched to my new map and then found the wind a real obstacle. I stopped to help a young French couple who had a flat but no pump. Quite why you would travel without a pump I'm not sure but in any case I was able to do my help...

Day six 72m/115k. Cum 300m/480k Long hot day. I set off in mist with my light on but it was already clear it was going to burn off and be a scorcher. (I did of course wipe my feet on the palace mat one last time prior to departure. 3-0, could easily have been 6) Weather by far the warmest so far and apparently the warmest day here since last August. I hit the Loire at lunch time, five days of cycling from Hertfordshire( 2.5 in UK, 2.5 in France) not too bad ...