Bicycle Race

I'm aching all over. Not because of the work, my body's getting used to that. Our latest farm has a couple of bikes, and as the nearest town is only a couple of kilometres away, we're making some good use of them. Now, bear in mind that the last time I was on a bike would have been at least half of my life ago, it didn't have gears, the handlebars were higher than the seat and once I got above the age where I could cycle on the pavement I got freaked out and decided that cycling was not for me. Still, I got my courage up and ventured onto the road. For our first trip into Elne we took the long way which avoids the busy duel carriageway over the river Tech. This was about 10km, which is why I am now in so much pain. Still I'm enjoying the freedom that it gives us - the main thing is that we're a bit less reliant on our hosts.

Elne is quite a nice little town although we haven't looked much further than this internet café yet! There is a big 11th century church which I think we'll visit one afternoon. On Sunday we're going to the beach in Argelès sur Mer - Ursula our host took us for a look around on Wednesday night and it's quite touristy so if I'm lucky I might get to see the Man Utd / Chelsea match! We're also hoping to go to Villefranche du Conflent in the mountains if I can find a hotel...

La Ferme Musicale is our current location. So far we've done quite a lot of jobs. There's always weeding of course (and these have been some huge weeds) and Darren's been using a strimmer everyday. We've collected a few squashes, raspberries and tomatoes, trimmed pine and orange trees and I've had to poison some moles (not sure that's something I like doing, but sometimes you just have to do as you're told). In a change from our last place, we're in an upstairs room in the house but our bathroom is outside. The floor to our attic conversion room is very creaky and our hosts are sleeping below - Victor being a musician doesn't like to be disturbed too early so we have to creep about as quietly as possible! Victor and Ursula have two daughters, Delphine (14) and Joanna (10). It's good for us to listen to their French conversation but they speak very quickly sometimes! Darren definitely has a better idea of what is being said than I do.

Steve Hogarth was excellent in Marseilles. My favourite tracks that he performed were Cage and Three Minute Boy, but that may have been because we all got to sing along! We spent Sunday doing a few tourist things, the most impressive being the Palais du Longchamp. Not knowing really what it was or what to expect - the scale was breathtaking. It's a fountain which makes the Trevi look like a bidet. It's simply huge, and the best thing is that you can climb it! We approached it from the gardens at the top and the view of the city from there isn't bad either.

Our journey to Elne was fairly uneventful. We had a couple of hours in Nimes, so we hauled our packs on our backs and had a wander. There's a big Roman arena which still stages events including bull-fighting - if we had more time we'd have gone in but we contented ourselves with a walk around it.

About an hour after we arrived at the farm - in what is becoming a common theme - the heaven's opened. And I mean REALLY opened. It blew a gale, there were many thunderstorms around and it was as if someone was pouring a huge vat of water onto the roof. It didn't last long and we could soon see the skies clearing over the mountains.

I've changed a couple of things on the blog. On the right hand side there are two links, one for the photo page (not sure how many photo updates Darren can do here, a bit of trouble with these computers) and another which says Current Location. This will take you to a Google map link zoomed in on our current location. It can take a while to load, so be patient! Also I've unlocked the comments function so you should be able to leave a comment if you wish.