We got caught up on laundry, sorted out what we’re taking to England, and took Mo to her ‘vacation property’ in the village of Chez Renard. I wanted to see where she would be kept but as she’s staying in the owner’s house I couldn’t – she trotted off without a backward glance.

The next morning we had lots of time to get ready, and left for Limoges with time to spare. The flight wasn’t too bad, and we landed on time in Bristol. Young Neil was there to pick us up and we had a fast ride into Worcester.

We’d intended to go to the Bull for fish and chips for dinner, but discovered too late that Neil had one set of keys for the mini and neighbours Lyn and Philip had the other, and they were out. As an alternative we walked up to the Grange Pub, which was ok, but not the Bull.

Saturday morning we went into Droitwich as Colin had a dentist appointment, while I went shopping, then had a decent cappuccino – the best I’ve had since we left Italy.

We stopped at the Bull on the way home and had lunch – it started to just pour with rain right before we left. By the time we headed out to the party the rain had mostly stopped and the sun was trying to come out.

It’s the 25th anniversary of the fencing company Colin co-founded, and the current owner (Colin’s former partner Tim) put on a great event.

It was held at the beautiful venue of Stone Manor near Kidderminster, and he’d gone all out. There were events for the kids in the afternoon including games and a magician, followed by a pig roast, and a band.

All drinks were free, as were very cozy warm blankets – also umbrellas, just in case.

There were a lot of very nice people – many that were with the company when Colin retired 10 years ago were still there and all were very pleased to see him.

I might have had one or two drinks too many, although the zambuca at the end of the night went down very well. I danced quite a bit, and managed to stay on my feet without face-planting and totally embarrassing myself – it was a lot of fun – good company, good food, free drinks – what could be better?

Breakfast the next day was great – I felt much better than might have been expected, and then we headed back to Worcester.

We moved our chairs down the hill a bit so we’re directly across from a hedge on a steep incline – there won’t be any people standing there getting in our shots. I’m right next to a small group of french men, and they seem to think I’m pretty funny – I can’t understand much but I know they talked about me quite a bit. I was wearing my rah-rah skirt and every time I bent over to get water for Mo or something they kept tittering about it – but it’s not actually a skirt! It’s LPGA with built-in shorts, but at least they got their entertainment.

The ITT started a little late – likely due to Froome’s crash – as the first rider didn’t appear until about twenty to two. I’d experimented with my camera quite a lot with the amateurs and re-con riders so by the time the race was actually on I knew the best angle and zoom points – I didn’t even get off the chair and no one was in front of me or in the background – it was almost perfect.

I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd that eventually lined the road – very nice to see the great turnout especially after yesterday. Being so near the town and having the great weather certainly helped, I guess.

In a couple of my photos I can see myself reflected in the rider’s sun visors – Sally selfie!!

We knew the order of the riders as they go in reverse from the current overall standings. Each rider has a team car behind them with their name on it – even so when I squinted to see one near the end I was puzzled about who ‘Vatesa’ was – a spanish or south american rider I’d never heard of in the top 10?? I felt extremely foolish when I realized it wasn’t ‘VATESA’, but ‘YATES.A’ – Adam Yates riding for Mitchelton Scott – ha ha ha!! I laughed so hard I snorted – the frenchmen next to me didn’t get the joke, but they thought I was hilarious.

By now my neighbours knew where I was from, so when Michael Woods appeared they cheered at least as loudly for him as I did.

My satisfaction with my photos was the direct opposite of yesterday’s – I have so many excellent ones I can hardly choose. A very nice problem to have for once.

We packed up fairly quickly, said goodbye to our neighbours and got on the road to Mansle before 5:00.

We took a slightly quicker route back, hitting fierce rain at times, and got home just after 9:30 – a good little trip. I do, however, look like a raccoon now because of my sunglasses – I need a hat with a large brim, or maybe I should have used the umbrella (one day for the rain, next day for the sun!).

Had a really good night, and it finally looked like better weather. I took Mo for a walk down to the town, which is right down around the corner from where we’re parked.

It’s a lovely place, with beautiful houses, a cafe or two, a nice park, and lots of sculptures here and there, as well as a colourful war memorial.

I tried to find a place to get a newspaper but the small store wasn’t open, despite the sign that said it was open every day but Sunday at 7:00. By the time we got back to the campervan Colin was up and about so we all headed back down together for a coffee.

This is the type of place I love – just the right size with a viable town centre, but not completely overrun with tourists. There were some tents being setup on the main street for race watchers, and Colin noticed that the fancy-looking restaurant actually had at least one Michelin star.

Colin asked another person at the cafe where he’d gotten his newspaper from and was directed to the bread shop next door – not the first place we’d thought to look.

After our delicious cafe creme we walked a bit further – I went inside the large church to check out the stained glass windows, which, as usual, were so much better from the inside.

The local school kids must have had the day off for the race – there’s an area near the church where they’re displaying their artwork of bikes, flags and jerseys – it’s really cute.

Back at the campervan we setup the flags, which are so much more impressive in the sunshine with a light breeze than they were yesterday drooping in the pouring rain.

We sat on the lawn chairs in front of the campervan and watched as the racers came by on their re-con rides, as well as bunches of amateurs.

At times some of the kids were riding up at the same time as their heroes, who were generally quite relaxed – I imagine it was very inspiring for the young ones.

A large group of fans gathered at a house across the road, and proceeded to set up tables for food, as well as a banner for their cycling club. Watching the banner hanging was very entertaining – after much discussion they attached it to some trees, but it was a bit high so they proceeded to cut the lower branches off so the banner could be seen better. Personally I would have hung the banner lower to start with, but refrained from giving them that advice.

The last person to pass on the re-con round was Chris Froome, looking down at his power meter as usual. A little while later Colin told me the news that Froome had crashed on the downhill and was out of the race. Now I’ll admit that Froome has never been my favourite rider, and I can’t stand his team, but I never want to hear that a rider has crashed. As the day progressed we found out more and more – it was a very serious crash at high speed and he had to be airlifted to the hospital. Apparently he has a broken femur, broken elbow as well as some ribs – brutal indeed. I wanted him to get beaten in a race – cracking on a mountain stage or being unable to follow a competitor, but never ever would anyone be happy about a serious crash.

After a night of on and off rain the day started out very grey. I took a walk up the road, then back down the other way to check out possible watching spots.

We both ended up staying in the campervan as the rain started to pour again.

I opened up the long side window and took my photos through that, while Colin sat on the front passenger seat and took his photos out the open door window. It worked out very well – we were both dry and warm, and no one was around us or in our way.

There was a two-man breakaway with about two minutes on the peloton – unfortunately for them they didn’t stand a chance.

Froome, as usual, was just like a robot staring down at his power meter the whole time.

Some of the riders had long sleeves and pants, while some were in shorts. A few minutes after they’d passed the rain stopped. I was fairly disappointed with my photos, although still glad I’d been able to stay dry and warm, and my camera was protected.

We were able to watch the end of the race on tv, then left for the next stage, the ITT, near Roanne. Once again I had a destination in mind so we headed towards Saint Andre D’Apchon, which was supposed to be the top of the climb, but was actually on the downhill. We backtracked to the top of the hill and down the other side towards Saint Alban Les Eaux. We found a great place right next to a cemetery – there was already one campervan there and they welcomed us warmly.

Several more rainstorms, as well as a very fierce windstorm in the last few days, along with a bit of sun. It really doesn’t seem much like June yet.

We spent some time one afternoon getting the campervan ready for our next short trip, and I discovered a huge, smelly mess in the fridge. Apparently one of us – ok, it was me – missed a couple of things in one of the door pockets, and one of the things was the butter. It wasn’t really butter anymore, but not quite cheese – it had melted in the heat of one of the warmer days and dripped down into the other two pockets and all over the bottom of the fridge.

I gagged repeatedly as I wiped it out with paper towels, then did two thorough scrubbings of everything with hot soapy water. We left it open to air for the rest of the day. Note to self: always check the top pocket!

I was inside the house doing something afterwards while Colin was finishing the campervan cleaning when I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen Mo lately. When I asked if she was in the campervan with him Colin said no. Luckily we had a good idea where she would be, and sure enough Colin found her nearing the bar – sneaky little rascal.

We got a good start the next morning – I showered, ate and packed, and we were on the road before 9:30. Packing was easier this time as we’re only going to be away for 3 or 4 days and I won’t be needing any of my winter stuff – theoretically.

It was a bit of a drive as we chose to go on secondary roads rather than the toll-highway, but at least the roads are in better shape than the ones in Italy. We passed the usual memorials to the resistance – some from WWII, and some of today’s.

We tried to stop for groceries but most of the stores are closed as it’s yet another holiday in France. We finally found a Carrefour in La Souterraine that was open until noon and stocked up on essentials.

I had chosen a spot to head for – there are three minor climbs in a row between 50 and 75 km from Tuesday’s finish in Riom so we found the route and traced it backwards. We passed what looked like a good spot, drove to the next town and turned around.

Unfortunately there’s been a rockslide on the main road in the area so all of the local and through traffic is now using this small side road. I guess the drivers will just have to exercise patience – ha ha, good luck, this is France – when the race is on, as they do close the roads down completely for large races such as the Dauphine.

We settled in and had some pasta with salad for dinner, then Colin took Mo outside for a little walk. Shortly after coming back Mo was sitting on my lap when Colin noticed something on her – she’d picked up a tick! It was very small and hadn’t yet burrowed in and I spent the next hour off-and-on searching for more.

Had a pretty good night, although the dickheads that honk as they go by annoyed me greatly. The thing is if I’m asleep they don’t wake me up and if I’m awake I hear them and all they do is tick me off. I pretend to myself that they’re just saying a friendly hello to us when in reality they’re being assholes. And it’s not just in France – they have friends in Italy that also do it.

The last several days have been somewhat lazy – much as I love the travelling it is nice to be in one place for a while. We did take a drive down to Angouleme, where Colin made an appointment to have the campervan serviced, and tried to find some stainless steel pans but all we could find was aluminium, so came home empty handed.

We walked down to the bar one night intending on having a drink when we discovered it was their special meal night – we ended up having huge portions of scampi with chips.

We did take a few little bike rides – Colin’s new electric bike seems to work very well, as he gets even further ahead of me now, especially going up hills. The first ride was only around 14 km, then just over 20 km, and today’s was about 30 km. The weather was perfect for riding, although we had to miss yesterday as it poured and poured all day long. The sunflowers are just starting to grow, but the poppies are going crazy.

Edith and Sylvain (who own the Penalty Bar) have gotten a new little dog – his name is Snoopy, and he’s just adorable. He’s already a favourite of the patrons so Mo’s feeling a bit left out, although she still gets lots of attention.

Snoopy was rescued from a shelter and was in pretty bad shape when they first got him – he was covered in mats and looked like he had mange or something. They had him basically shaved and now he’s fluffy and beautiful. He knows to stay in the bar – he won’t cross the doorline to go outside by himself, even to visit the outdoor tables.

We visited the Hope Charity at their new location, which is now in one very large building rather than several smaller ones. They have it divided into different spaces for books, clothing, kitchen stuff, etc. And they also have an outdoor area with a lady selling potted plants and flowers – she has a spaniel named Kevin that’s very sweet, and he tried to get friendly with Mo. The only thing missing was the adoptable dogs space.

We left the Mortirolo fairly early to avoid traffic coming up the hill towards us, going down into the village of Mazzo di Valtellina, and back along the road we came on. West to Lake Como, then south to Lecco, before hitting a diversion due to road works.

We wondered about all of the cars parked along the road at one point, then saw that the road crews were lifting a new bridge into place with some huge cranes – there was a large crowd watching the procedure.

We skirted Milano, then west along the motorway and also got by Torino and on past Susa. We had already planned to take the Cenis pass rather than the long tunnel into France.

Just after the French border – which is really just a sign on the road – we came to a building that had several police cars at it – one of the policemen walked towards us so we stopped. He just asked if there was only the three of us, including Mo, and when we said yes he let us go. Apparently there’s still a big problem with migrants trying any and all entry points to get into France, then maybe on to England.

We stopped at one place so I could take some photos – there are three displays, one each of cyclists, soldiers on horses, and elephants. This is one of the many passes that Hanibal might have driven the poor elephants over.

A little further on there are a couple more elephant displays.

We found a campground just before Chambery and checked in for the night.

The next day was a long drive home, going up and through the Tunnel de Chat above Lac du Bourget, then through the beautiful countryside in the foothills of the Alps heading west past the River Rhone.

We arrived home to Mansle around 5:30 or 6:00, unloaded the campervan and headed down to the campground bar for dinner – it’s a holiday today so the Penalty Bar is closed.

They’ve done some more improvements to the restaurant/bar – there’s now a permanent pergola instead of the temporary tent/awning thing they used to have, and new tables and chairs. We were enjoying our burgers and fries when a regular patron arrived carrying an adorable little kitten. He ended up putting it in his right coat pocket, where it eventually fell asleep – it was so cute!

Much as I love the travelling it is nice to be in one place for a bit. Everyone greets us so warmly and are genuinely happy to see us back, even if it’s only for a while.

The rain finally let up sometime during the night but the day was still overcast. I started to hear riders and walkers going up the mountain around 8 or so, and as usual the throng thickened more and more. I wondered how far up some of the walkers were going – we are, after all, about 10 km from the top of the climb.

The rain came and went a couple of times, but never the pouring that we had yesterday afternoon just after arriving.

We took a walk up a bit, then down from where we were and decided that right across the road was likely one of the best places to watch from. When it rained a bit harder we retreated into the campervan for lunch.

Around 2:30 we each grabbed a tent ground cover and headed across the road to our chosen spots so we could perch on the ground at the edge of the road without getting our butts soaked.

We’re just below the 26th hairpin from the top, out of a total of 34. The breakaway reached us at 4:08.

Nibali arrived with the peloton about six minutes later.

Ackerman was all smiles as he passed, despite still being all bandaged up on his right side from the awful crash days and days ago.

One of the Bora team cars had parked right next to the campervan to pass out bidons to his team, and when Colin went back to change his camera the fellow just handed him a bottle without even asking.

The final riders made it past at around 4:30, just as the rain started up again. By the time fans were making their way back down the mountain it was just pouring. We decided not to venture down in the rain and stayed on the Mortirolo another night.

In no particular rush to leave we slept in a bit – I was going to have a shower but discovered that you needed to buy tokens so washed my hair, etc in the sink – it had nice hot water and no tokens needed.

After getting a bit caught up on my blogging I then took a nice walk out the ‘back’ gate and down to the beach. There weren’t too many people about so I did chi-gong under some trees near the water.

We’re right across the lake from where we were last October after we left Ghisallo after the Tour of Lombardy – I like this area a great deal as it reminds me very strongly of home even though the mountains are a little higher.

We got away around 11:30, stopping for some groceries, then on to our next chosen area to watch the last stage that we’ll see of the Giro. It was mostly east, then a bit north towards Bormio, but turning off shortly after Tirano and onto the Passo di Mortirolo.

The road was really narrow and had many switchbacks – we passed some workers repairing a guard rail so knew we were on the right road. We didn’t go too far up, pulling over just about 2 km up the 12 km climb. We’d found a nice fairly flat spot that fit the campervan perfectly and chose not to go any further. It will be the 5th and last climb of the stage so going right near the top didn’t seem necessary – plus I was nervous about the narrowness of the road and possibly meeting another vehicle coming down.

The Passo di Gavia was supposed to be the last climb of the next day’s racing – and the most difficult of the entire race – but it had to be taken off the route as the risk of avalanche and snow was just too much, even though they worked for days trying to get the road in passable condition.

It started raining just as we found our spot, and proceeded to pour for hours, but we were dry and warm. We had an excellent steak, potatoes, and fried onion with tomatoes dinner – oh, the hardships of camping!

Race day dawned a bit cloudy, but not too bad – if it rains it shouldn’t be as bad as some of the days have been. We had been joined overnight by several more campervans, all lined up in a row below us. When I took Mo for a little walk I happened to see Floriana – she was super happy to see me, and assured me she was ok – they have two other restaurants and are doing alright.

And as the morning progressed the parking lot got more and more full – all directed by the old fellow from last night. He had hundreds of cars crammed in like sardines – no one better be in a hurry to leave!

We ventured down around 10:30 to have a cappuccino and walk around to see what was going on – one highlight was when the police lamborghini pulled in – lots of folks crowding around and taking selfies in front of it, and a couple of lucky young kids being put inside and pretending to drive it.

We chatted for a bit with an older cyclist that had just finished the climb on an electric bike – it was a very nice one and you couldn’t really tell it was electric unless you knew. He was 81 years old and was from Whistler! We went back to the campervan for lunch, then back to the road around 2:30, not wanting to miss anything. We found a great spot about 25 meters from the top of the climb – we got some help climbing over the rather flimsy barrier and squished next to a rock wall with cedar hedges on top. But it was great because no one could get in front of us and we could see down the hill a bit too.

First of all the cavalcade came through – zipped by as usual and I did get a nice black bag out of it – no little stuffed wolf, though, which is what I really want.

As I was taking some test shots making sure the flash was synced a female amateur rider came up – she thought it was pretty cool that I was taking her photo.

Then a little boy rode up – he got such resounding cheers and applause that he turned around at the top, rode down a bit and came up again to the same accolades – perhaps the next Nibali in the making.

At 3:42 the bells in the church tower across the road started ringing – the riders had been spotted on one of the switchbacks below.

Three minutes later the first racers appeared – a breakaway of two about seven minutes ahead of the peloton.

Several of the teams had guys handing off bottles and bars to the riders, but luckily (for them) none of them impeded my shots.

By 4:09 the last rider had passed and folks started to throng the roads trying to get away. We went back to the campervan and took our time leaving – there’s only the one road to and from Ghisallo and it was going to be bumper to bumper so we weren’t in a hurry.

By the time we left the traffic had died down and we had clear sailing south to Lecco, then up the east side of the lake to the small town of Domaso just around the north end and back down the west side a few miles.

We had chosen a campground to head to but couldn’t find it, although it didn’t matter. There were several in a row all along the lakeshore so we just picked one and settled in – it’s owned by a couple of little old german ladies who run it like generals – friendly, but authorative. We didn’t feel like cooking so went out for dinner, walking down the main street to a likely looking restaurant.

It was just lovely – a delicious meal with no cooking or dishwashing involved (at least for us). Colin got the lasagna and I chose pasta with smoked salmon in a cream sauce – it was excellent. As usual over here Mo was welcome and all the waiters and waitresses made a fuss over her – she’s such a little flirt, and always knows who brings the food.