Beaulon

Another rest day.  We are getting close to our destination at Roanne and we have time to kill, and seeing this is a F1 Grand Prix weekend, and we have good 4G signal here, we decided to stay and watch the race here.

This morning I went for a bike ride to the boulangerie (which I discovered is 2 kms away, not 1 km) and I got a bit carried away.  You see, in a little over 2 weeks’ time I am having a hip replacement operation, plus having an operation on one of my feet at the same time.  So I have decided that from tomorrow I am going to cut out all the rubbish food such as pastries and lovely bready snacks, in the interests of being as healthy as possible.  Yes, I know, should have started ages ago!  Anyway, today, my last day of over indulgence, was definitely a day of over indulgence!

2 baguettes (1 for the freezer for tomorrow), a petite baguette de tomate, a petite baguette bleu and a croissante aux amandes

Then I went for a long walk to work off some of the calories.

A bit skew, but he got it right and didn't touch sides

A welcome sign at the lock - in 14 languages

At the top of a hill overlooking the valley there was huge statue in a field

Odd sort of place for a statue, I guess he's a saint

Foxgloves in the hedge rows

White rambling roses

Large pink rambling roses

Small pink rambling roses

I came back to find Ian immersed in batteries – again.

He has also done quite a bit of work on the rusty scars that have accumulated from various incidents. I admit to being remiss in not mentioning this before; every time we have a rest day he gets out the ginder, rust remover, paint, etc and does some work.  Gradually, Njord is beginning to look pretty again.

Late in the afternoon a tiny (6m?) boat arrived with a family of 5 and a motorbike on the fore deck.  Ian offered his muscle to get it off - the motorbike was almost bigger than the boat!