day 3, leg 1: from the cow field to l'hôpital.

It was a hard, cold night - and I had the luxury of a hammock and sleeping bag. Apart from Matyas none of the boys had brought anything warm to sleep in, and bin liners don't do much for insulating against the night air. The only sleep most of us got was after about 5am when the sun started beating down.

9am came, and our host the farmer came to wake us with his young son. A round of bizzare introductions was made between sleep-deprived lads and this 8 year old boy. The boy tried his best English, we tried our best French. But the exchange only made him look at us with more suspicion: smelly cyclists sleeping in bin-bags.

                                                                                                                                  

The kind French Farmer showed us his sheds, reminded us again to beware of the Dogs, to close the gate when we left, and directed us towards a watering can to "laver." We really were smelly cyclists who slept in bin bags.

We did as we were told: we steered clear of the dogs, washed in the watering can and closed the gate when we left - leaving no trace of our being there apart from a note of thanks. And I am really grateful to the French farmer as there really was no need for his kindness, and we all left legs a-spinning with a feeling it was going to be a good day.

And it was a good day, in fact the first 10k of that day was beautiful: shady trees lined the cycle path and we zipped on towards the next town comparing what we were going to have for breakfast. I love those food conversations - they always follow the same routine, the same back and forth of small boasts and mundane desires. We all eat everyday but we still get so excited when we know there is a great meal coming up. I was going to have a strong black coffee, maybe even two. And an almond croissant.

The zipping continued, and we started to pick up some speed.

"Come on Peters, let's race!"

And so I did.

And then my pannier flicked, and caught. And my bike jammed. And I went head first into a sturdy metal fence.

I was trapped under the bike, it wouldn't budge. When one of the boys pulled it off me the first thing I did was jump up. I was fine, legs move: nothing broken.

But then the blood came. I lay down on the cycle path with Peter backing away from blood, Stuart handing me baby wipes and telling me to  "put pressure" on my forehead, and Oliver making jokes about my underarm stubble (after a few days on a bike sleeping in farmers gardens it's not that surprising is it?). I didn't really know what was going on, just that there was some blood on the pavement, on my top, in my eyes.

For the second time that day I was about to become very grateful for the kindness of strangers.

Daniel had found a local lady who'd at first offered a plaster, but on seeing the blood had quickly changed her mind and decided that a lift to the Doctor might be more appropriate. One look at my Frankenstein face and the Doctor (and a waiting room full of excited old French ladies) decided that l'hôpital was probably more suited to my needs.

The hospital was 20k away, and so my surrogate mother took Daniel and I away in her Punto and drove us the distance to the hospital, waited whilst the Doctor made jokes about Tour de France and chose a bright blue thread to sew me back together again with.

Face back in place, surrogate mother dropped us back in town by the church where we found the others. They had tracked down that breakfast we'd all been dreaming about that morning and we tucked into a pain au chocolat or two.