The Wandering Idiot

My rest is in Toulouse has been fantastic. The clouds lifted and I enjoyed a lovely morning bathing in the sun and 21c heat! Was certainly a change from yesterday. I didn’t do much other than potter around town a bit…my host Julie suggested a route to walk through town – which I took – and saw as much of the city as I could in a short morning. Toulouse is quite different from the other towns in France I have visited. The red brick structures are really soothing to the eye and you really start to get the feeling that you are moving south…the people, the attitude – everything is changing.

Guillaume and Julie treated me for lunch at a Canadian (yes Canadian) restaurant in the business district of town. We ate outside – quite a change from the the downpour I went through yesterday!

In the evening I was due to meet up with Jerome…you may recall from previous posts that I was to potentially meet up with a French painter to cycle with. Well – I wasn’t sure whether or not he really would take me up on my offer to cycle with me – but he did!

I mean – you really have to give this guy props! It wasn’t only 10 days ago that we met, shared stories, and I told him about my little tour! He had some time to burn so I suggested coming along for a bit…ride a bike…see how he likes it…and see what happens! Within the time we met and now he organised himself a bike, some panniers, a bit of courage and tonight I’m going over to his family’s place for dinner, a rest, and in the morning we start our first day of riding together so we’ll see how this goes!

At about 7pm (it’s dark out) I made my way from Julie and Guillaume’s place to meet up with him. It was a few kilometres away but I’d sussed it out on the map. As I parted was with J & G, they seriously set me up. After seeing me come to theirs soaking wet (they were great hosts by the way – really looked after me and helped me get my clothes dry) and starving, they gave me a KILO of M&M’s, biscuits, and energy bars! I was incredibly grateful.

I start cruising on my way…at pace…I must have been doing about 23 or 24 km/hr. A car tried to overtake me so a quickly tried to move out of it’s way…it was wet, there were lots of leaves on the ground…and then BAM! – my front tire hit a lip in the road, suddenly my bike was underneath me, and I went straight over the handle bars! Don’t know what happened but my bike fell to the right, but I impacted on my left shoulder and knee – then just went tumbling. It all happened so fast – I can’t even remember the fall. I just remember getting up about 4 metres from my bike…walking out to the road, pulling it out of traffic and then checking myself – and then the bike

‘i’m ok…everything is working…’

Drivers stop.

‘Ca va?’

‘Ca va, merci’

That was it. I took a second to recompose myself. It was the first fall of my tour – I was going fast, really going for the peddles…and I think I got lucky. I checked myself again. My knees ached, my shoulder was definitely burning, but I was ok. (Mama, Tata, if you are reading this – I’m fine…no need to call – everything is ok)

With adrenaline pumping I pulled it together – checked the bike again – I’d ripped a small hole in my ortlieb pannier, but the panniers had cushioned the bike – and got myself to Jerome and his family. I must have been shaken as when I reached the house I totally forgot my etiquette – didn’t introduce myself properly and just started blathering on to Jerome about my close call…I was running on pure adrenaline.

I was worried about my knee for the next days cycling.

The rest of the evening was lovely. Jerome’s in-laws had prepared a fantastic dinner of veal, cheeses, and desert and the things finished very well…but I went to bed with my body aching and truly worried about getting back on the bike – even though I feigned that everything was ok.