I've cycled across France

Six days to go
Distance travelled: 116.5 miles
Time in saddle: 9hrs 46 mins
Overall distance travelled: 5034.6 miles

It seemed strange this morning because I was coming to the end of my journey across France. I started out a little later than usual because I wasn’t in any particular hurry. I cycled for a few hours and stopped in a lovely city called Sees, a beautiful town with a great atmosphere. It had a magnificent Cathedral and some really quaint medieval houses surrounding the square…..it sounds like “Wish You Were Here’ doesn’t it. What is it about the French, they seem to be obsessed with bread. The only shops that are open first thing in the morning are bread shops and they always have queues. Everywhere you look French people are walking around with a couple of sticks of bread under their arm.....is it a secret code or something.
It was really difficult to find a shop that sold drinks other than a bar or restaurant, which were very expensive, five euros for a large glass of beer.
I decided to travel on along some lovely quiet road. I am so glad that I stayed off the beaten track an used the less busy roads. I thought that I had seen some attractive towns on my route through France but the best was yet to come. A town called Bernay. It is everything that you could imagine a medieval town to be like. I went into the centre and there was a flea market on. It was unbelievable. The houses were all wood and plaster construction and they leaned all over the place like something out of a fairy tale, beautiful. I sat and had a drink outside a charming pub and soaked up the wonderful atmosphere. I was going to spend a couple of days resting but I still had a yearning to cycles to Le Havre. I suppose that I just wanted everything to be sorted for my journey home on Monday. As I cycled on I intended to look for a campsite and stop but I didn’t come across any so I just kept cycling.Typical, been seeing them every few miles when I wasn't looking, now I can't find one. I saw a guy coming towards me on a very interesting cycle. It had the pedals right out in front of the bike frame, the cyclist almost lay flat as he pedaled…unusual. We stopped and had a chat. His name was Eric, seems to be a popular name in France. He spoke some English and he told me that it was the first day of his cycling holiday….It brought back so many memories about my first day in San Francisco. It seems a life time ago. He told me that if I went to a town called Quillebeut I could get a ferry across the Seine rather than using a very busy bridge further down river. I thanked Eric and continued onto the town he suggested. The ferry was fantastic. It crossed every fifteen minutes and didn’t cost anything, brilliant. By now I was on a mission. I wanted to get to Le Havre. I just had this compulsion to get home. It was a really strange feeling. As I entered le Havre it was getting dark. I went straight o the docks to see if there was a late sailing, there wasn’t. I stopped and asked a guy in the car park if he could speak English. His name was Dave and he was an English lorry driver, delivering chicken nuggets to Mc Donalds. What a relief. He told me that the next sailing was tomorrow afternoon and suggested a couple of cheap hotels in the town centre. They were all full, what is it about me and hotels? They started to call me ‘no room at the inn O’Brien’ I cycled back to the docks and Dave was chatting to a mate of his called Bill, a lorry driver from Wales who ended every sentence with “init” . He was quite a character. They suggested that I set up my tent on some grass next to their parked trucks, which I did and Dave produced a bottle of wine, which we shared. We had a good chat an laughed our heads off, Bill told some great stories. You can say what you want about us Brits but you can't beat our sense of humour. Dave put my bike in the back of his trailer for the night, which is a ‘cold store’ It should keep gusher nice and cool after a long ride. I’m still driven to getting back to England, I know I’ve booked a ferry for Monday night but I’m itching to get home. It’s hard to describe how I feel. If I had floats on my bike I’d cycle across that’s for sure. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.