Saved by the flipflops and Brehat

Planned a short day today as we wanted to get to our B+B quickly and also visit Isle Brehat, the romantic island! We shall see!

As you’ll remember we were in somewhat of a fancy B+B. A large old manor house built in the 1600s. Somewhat of an upscale clientele. So you can imagine my dismay as we sat for breakfast and out comes a little puffer. No one noticed but clearly I had to head for the toilet immediatement. Readers of last year’s blog might remember how we taught Jayne and Danny the cough+fart trick, for which Danny never seemed to master (and it seemed like Jayne had a bad case of whopping cough). Anyway I knew as I walked out of the very large dining room that something was called for; this was going to be a fart-for-every-step type of deal.

So how good is this: I had flip-flops on, I took a few tentative steps pinching tightly, and I noticed the flip-flops smacked loudly on every step. Saved! Took the 8-9 steps out of the room, slapping those flips-flops as loud as I could while maintaining a perfect harmony of fart plus sandal smack right off the stage. I had a huge grin on my face as I sprinted up the stairs tooting away and barely made it to our bathroom. Ah, once again the simple pleasures in life.

Morning ride was on a large road so we made good time. Decided to buy sandwiches at a Boulangerie (bakery) to save time, ate them at a church, then headed down to cross an other inlet, another pleasant hike up to the plateau, then a beautiful ride to the northern tip where the ferry left for Isle de Brehat. Our B+B was right near the ferry. No cars on Brehat, in fact bikes had to be brought over before 10:00 AM, so we left our bikes/gear at the B+B, changed clothes in the yard (Madame was out for a few hours) then took the ferry across.

The pier went out a few hundred yards as there were three different docking spots depending on the tide. And on Brehat it was even further, it took 10 minutes to walk from the low water pickup to the high water pickup. These are 30-40 foot tides and very shallow dropoffs to the tide goes out forever.

Brehat was postcard pretty but too crowded for us. 4000 people/day visit in the summer. So we walked around for awhile, but it looked much like what we’ve been seeing for the past two weeks so we said screw it (perhaps the extent of the romantic influence?) and headed back to our nice B+B for a shower and a bed. When you’re out riding 6 hours a day you really like to hit the room and just chill.

Had a home cooked meal, soup de poisson, think French onion soup but thicker and with a seafood taste, and scallops, which have been uniformly excellent btw. Plus we finished a whole bottle of white wine, which knocked us (April?) out and clearly put an end to any thoughts of a romantic evening.