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Clumsy We headed out on D960 and followed it most of the day along more canola and plowed fields. The bright yellow canola looked like a swaying sea of lemons. A field of sunshine. Two kilometers from Joinville a bridge crossed the canal to a small road. We sat on the one lane bridge's concrete abutment and enjoyed the full strength of the thirty degree Celsius sun. We ate peanuts, chocolate croissants, multiple chocolate pudding, bread smeared with apricot jam, and Normandy camembert cheese with orange juice. The French wouldn't be happy that we weren't drinking wine with our cheese. Wispy mare's tail clouds streaked the blue sky. A swing tied to a couple of bridge struts hung over the water. I pleaded long enough that Sharon finally agreed to go for a swing. Getting on proved to be the toughest part. Sharon would have been majorly sour if she went into the drink. And I wouldn't have been overly surprised. She had been having a difficult time with body parts lately. While sewing her worst for wear pannier covers she had stuck her finger so many times I thought she was going to need a transfusion. Then, taking the pole out of the tent she ripped off her fingernail. Finally, while riding her bike, she had run over her own foot. How did one manage that? While she struggled awkwardly to get her legs between the ropes two boys fishing on the opposite bank looked on with amusement. I packaged our journals, maps, postcards and birthday cards for the mail. But we couldn't find a post office in any of the small towns we passed through. Fortunately Sharon had bungeed it to the back of her rear rack. I had neglected to do the cap tight enough on the bottle of juice on the back of my rack and my entire load of dry laundry became wet and sticky. I was swearing at myself for being so careless. It may not seem like such a tragedy, but it was as if my entire wardrobe had been soaked in orange pop. Life on the road made little events take on immense proportions. At home, without a moments pause, I would have just thrown the whole mess into the washer. But on the road in France it put me in a predicament. I had planned on wiping up and looked forward to putting on fresh clothes. But suddenly I had no clean clothes to put on. I had to find a place to wash them again, then hope the sun would be out long enough to dry them again. Passed a mother reaming out her kids. I didn't have to understand the language to decipher that tone. All mothers used the same in troubled times. And the whine from the child who was guilty and caught in the act was the same everywhere too. We had to stop and wait for a huge barge to pass through a lock. Sharon maintained it would never fit, until I pointed out it must have made it through the last lock a hundred feet behind it. It was like some sort of optical illusion -- the barge appeared too large to fit between the gate. It squeezed through with inches to spare. For a scenic shortcut we followed D10. The farmer's fields had a bumper crop of rocks. "It's gotta be hard on machinery," Sharon said. They should have planted vineyards. One of the Jersey cows was gray and white. It must have been out in the sun too long and faded. Nearby was a pony with a stark white body and a mismatched black head. Even the mane was white until half way it turned to black. I didn't know the French were doing head transplants. The forest we found for camping was infested with tiny black flies and no-see-ums. The chunk they took out of our hides indicated they must be able to unhinge their jaws. Since we were riding more kilometers I was losing weight again. I tried to stuff myself at every opportunity. Drat. I had that uncomfortable "overfull" feeling. After supper I laid on the camprests and moaned for a while. Sharon cut up strawberries for dessert. Just as she was finishing, she tipped the bowl over and spilled every last one of them onto the ground. The berries pocked faces stared back at her. I hoped that was the finale to her episodic clumsiness. The moon was a sliver of almond. |
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