Page 267 - Demo

263ed a lot of work. He spent some time there and then cycled to Paul%u2019s house and spent a week with them. After that he set off to cycle to the Pyrenees to meet up with us later. In typical Ben%u2019s fashion he cycled the first day and then caught a train to near where we were going to camp. Apparently, he organised it such that he and the bike went on different trains. That was impressive as his French was pretty limited. He then found a cheap campsite to stay at before we arrived.. My original plan had been to tow the caravan straight across France, but Thiery%u2019s family had access to the French computer system. While we were all buying personal computers with associated programs, the French had gone for a central system so that individuals just had a keyboard and a screen. When we looked at that we realised that it would take days to get across and that the quickest and easiest way was to follow the motorway down to the Mediterranean and then up the other side. A long but quite interesting journey. There were major fires in Provence and we watched flying boats scooping up water from the Mediterranean and then water bombing the fires. Eventually we got to our campsite and had a coupleof weeks good holiday. Paul and Jackie joined us as well. Paul is a great cyclist and so suggested we go for a ride. As it was very hot, the plan was to get up very early and set off in the cool of the morning. Obviously, as we were in a valley it was all uphill and quite exhausting. After about 3 hours the sun was up and we stopped probably at a caf%u00e9 for a drink. We then set off back to the campsite which took about 20 minutes! Alex wanted to go riding and that was advertised at the site. We went and spoke to them and said that Alex did not have a helmet. They said %u201cthat%u2019s OK they are not compulsory in France%u201d. That wasn%u2019t really our point but never mind. We gave Alex the money for an hour or so of riding and watched her go to where the horses were. For ages nothing happened. The owner was just wandering about and we were looking at the time. Quietly grumbling about how long she would actually get. We did not have much money in those days as Gabby still did