A balade as the sun goes down

An evening strole a balade not a randonnez, as the sun was dimming near the lost village of Casenove. The warm light of this bright winters day brought the browns of a mediterranean autumn to the fore. Silhouettes grew from the sandy, rocky alluvial plain on the Tet.

Dogs barked and hunters fired shotguns through the thicket, while families strolled this popular venue too and fro. Oak seered by some long forgotten fire were surrounded by rejuvenated undergrowth. Bamboo stems, slender and supple sliced through the bright green foliage. Neat rows of stark fruit trees puctuated the plain.


The Canigou became dark and mysterious across the wide Tet valley. High above the silver sliver of moon became bright in a still blue sky.

Granite boulder walls of the compounds and houses of Casenove, were now overgrown with cultivated vines.

In short bursts, I lectured my son on the development of a new persona for the new year. A persona based upon wit, imagination, fun and above all application. Crows cawed their appreciation of the message as it fell among the silent stones of deserted, forgotten Casenove.

Dali Museum

Having spent a week of strenous training and feeling as fit as the proverbail fiddle now. (Such a strange image- why not as fit as the fiddler?), I made my way down to Figueras to visit the Salvador Gala Dali museum.

I love Dali for his sense of fun and the overiding theme that everything is mere illusion and nothing is real. San dunes are faces, rocks are bodies. Househild objects are noses, lips are sofas. There is such a tremendous sense of fun in all this. Dali emerges as a self publicist and kind of early cross betweeen Branson and Hockney.

Deeper messages based upon themes in Freudian psychology are evident and compelling. The enduring fondness of his long term affection for, and relationship with Gala is endearing to me.

Yet Dali displays mastery of techniques in the creation of art and his media involves painting, sculpture, the skills of the jeweller, the animator and the illusionist. There are elemnst of performance art in many of his works. This drawing of Tuna Fishing is not perhaps typical Dali but shows his sheer mastery of drawing.


The museum is well worth a visit. Dali can also be explored on the internet. There is also a good Dali museum in Florida.

The day was welcome nourishment contrasting starkly with the heaving muscle wrenching excercise regime of the past few days. Set me up for a leovely dinner of wild boar, potato and red cabbage cooked by Chris Garrick and Julia. Listening to Chris playing a CD version of a range of peices but especially "Dimming of the Day" was a great end to a day of art.

Go for it part two.

Another sharp bend called for another rest and taking in the view. A drink of Scottish spring water and an apple. "There goes my last supplies", I thought echoing Scott, or Amundson. The cycling had taken on epic proportions.

Far below the N116 roared intermitantlyas large and small bugs sped east and west. The sun was bright burning back the misty dampness.

The dusty track flattened out now confirming the map. Peddling became easy. On the right towering on another hillside a ruined building sttod grey and forlorn. A high tower, or the remains of a large chimney loomed over the scrubby autumn thorn forest below.

A golden rule I have found in these parts is never take the path that looks overgrown and abandoned. It always ends abruptly. However, the wide dusty track turns a slight right and up over another low hill. To the left a grassy track runs alongside an unusual wire fence. It's downward very steeply and once again I dismount. Entering a shady wooded area it becomes soft underfoot. "Is that a tarmac road?" I peer across the narrow valley and slightly upward. "Is that a distant car I hear?" "No its the black of granite!" "No surely its tarmac."

I take another gamble and continue downward. To find a ford. Deep and fast flowing in the shady hollow of a deep ravine. Large boulders make cycling through the water which I guess would come to the bottom of the forks. I don't fancy getting my feet wet on this chilly day. I work out several stepping stone options, leaning on the bike and stepping on the not so submerged larger boulders. Emerging from the other side succesfully with a marginally damp left foot I start to peddle up the now almost completely overgrown track. An opening in the undergrowth confirms the large possbility that there is tarmac at head height on the right but a steep bank bars the way. "Yes, but it could be just a random bit of tarmac not going anywhere."

Along the path and round a bend all hopes are confirmed. Not only deep black almost unused tarmac but there within a few roads the sign confirms that this is the D13, the road back to Vinca. Cycling round here is emerging into a pattern. In South East England you get used to ups and downs. Sometimes slightly more ups than downs. Always moderate. Sometimes more downs than ups. Always cycle towpaths downstream. Similarly railway lines. These are gentle slopes.

Here you spend the morning going up. relentlessly upward. Steeply agonisingly upward. The downslopes are almost unforgettable. For 90 minutes I have been generally going up. Now high on the D13 I start to go down. The bike picks up speed easily. Life is sweet. The view of the valley is immense even through the misty cool bright air. Like a mature sensible lover the wise cyclist takes the pleasure slowly, cherishing the moment as if it may be the last. I stop to take the view and save a photo of the bike with my mobile phone.

Downward again and picking up speed. The bridge is in site and a last dash in high gears will see me up the ramp to the start of the bridge. I'm across the high roadway notcing the meandering river below and the greyness of the dired up resorvoir bed. Old summer sunken walls and roads are revealed. In front I can see the lights of the railway level crossing marking a return to civilised life. A thought crosses my mind and I dismiss it instantly. I pedal slightly quicker. "Ding" I gasp.

"Ding Ding Ding" The red light flickers and the single barrierstarts into downward motion. I pull up and rest my foot nonchalantly on the crash barrier on my right and wait for the afternoon express. It speeds past empty. the barriers lift and I take a calm moment before starting off up the steep slope, acorss the main road and left along the long drag back inbto the village. Mestres dogs are lieing in the sun motionless. I decide not to wake them up with a deep bellowing "ruff- ruff ruff ruff".

Go for it

Its no good staying in bed all day when you really have to get out and get fit. You just have to go for it. So friends have already let on that I need another route to cycle and I thought I'd like to explore the next valley where the wood comes down to the dried up lake in winter and there is a dirt track that leads off into the macquis. Its quiet there and never visited except for the odd fisherman when the lake fills in the summer. So where do the fish come from? Never mind.

So off I go on a chilly damp early morning cycle. Down through the village to the lake and across the viaduct taking the route alongside the single track railway line. A brief stop at the lake to take in the silent stillness without a ripple of le lac de Escoumes. Surrounded on three sides by the green shroud of hilly forest and stretching into the distance. High above through the cold mist glows the brightness of the warm sun unable yet to break through. Adjusting the holes on my wollen gloves to once again cover my finger tips, I start again along the well worn aged tarmac viaduct that forsm the fouth side of the lake.

The hillside closes in as the track passes through the sandy steep weathered ridge which is covered in scrub on the top and on any surface that has not been rain scoured into steep rivulets. I get to the track but decide against a turn. "Why turn into the lost valley with its endless meandering paths to nowhere. The map shows no discernable route. I have been down there walking and paths just stop. besides this tarmac path is smooth and peddling is easy' I carry onward. The dusting of sand and stones that covers the tarmac comes to and end and cycling is even better on the quite nes smooth macadam surface. A steep slope leads down to a sharp bend and the track turns across the path of the railway track. I rehearse the safety procedure at a single barrier continental style levekl crossing. "Should I dismount" becomes the question of the moment. No sod it. "There are hardly any trains on this line anyway". I cross and the road leads down to right hand curve, and I can see and hear the main road. The almost constant soft intermittent roar of each car and lorry grows louder. The main road has only two carriageways at this point. I wobble along the white line close to the edge. Each vehicle rushes past at 50-60 mph a few feet on my left. While I'm thinking about how well the French respect the cyclist a german whizzes past a few inches from me.

Down then up the hill and under the bridge as the railway crosses the road again. I take a right exploring the exact location of the restaurant advertsiued on horadings on the road. The dirt track leads off past a building that doesnt look like a rrestaurant, and then left past sevral more. In the dusty dirt grey front yard of the third house two large alsatians stir. One starts to bark waking a Rottweiller in the garden on my left. "Lets go back. There is no restuarant here"

I retun to the junction at the main road but go starighgt across along the road signposted to Rodes. The village stands at the end of the road up sharp against a steep cliff, covered with scrub. The new building at this end sport large gardens with swimming pools, scattered with the debris from last summer. A sun chair here. Some balls there. Childresn toys. All looks incongrous in the winter chill.

Through the village the path goes onward optomistically. Flat a first and then a sharpe turn. So this is real cycling. Not just a wizz round the Finestret. This path is mere dirt road through the macquis. I check the map and it looks like a mile or so down the road I can cross at the dam and get back to the village. "It will be nice to see the church by the dam, a place I have always wanted to visit", I think to myself.

But first there is some real cycling to be done as the dirt track rises steeply. I play about with the gears trying to find the right formula that will launch this heavy frame at great speed up this huge incline.

I never did write the piece yesterday about how cruel it is that ones middle age paunch is repeated jabbed by ones knees, left and right in turn as a cruel reminder of exactly why we are doing this. Its even worse uphill as the bike is angle just right to remind you.

At last the dam is almost reached but there is no cheer. Looming large a rusty sign says "access interdit" and a flimsy excuse for a fence bars the way. Great. The dirt track veers sharply upwards and right. "Maybe its goes up higher and comes down below?" Foolishly I take the next 100 metres up to another sharp bend. This time puffing harder and discarding gloves. "Surely just after the next bed I will be down and across the dam?" Three corners on I need a rest. This dirt track is going nowhere. I check the map, heart still pumping hard.

"Well if I carry on it looks like maybe the tarck turns into a footpath and then there might be a way back to the Montalban road. The garrague was lit by a burst of sun that picked out the brown oak leaves, contrasting them with the burnt black stems of the trees that were victims of the forst fire of two yaers ago. I searched for regrowth and here and there last years shoots had spring from the base of the worst cases. Whether they were the same plant or grown from seeds was unclear.

I tried another hundred metre dash straining at each peddle.

Thank you St Thomas

Decided late today not to take the cycling to excess. You can damage yourself permanently and I don't want to become muscle bound. Instead had a late start, did some drawing. Opened the book on drawing trees and tried my hand at it. Wished I had started the oil painting thing, all the way. Got quite pleased with the pencil drawing of a tree filled landscape. Promised myself that I would do it in oil, one day.

Late in ther afternoon we decided to go to St Thomas le Bain, a hot spring bath in the mountains. After paying a four euro's each we waited , "un minuit" while the scramble eased in the small room of changing cubicles. Moments later were were stripped off and in 'our togs", as Gina would say. Heading for the outside door. The winter forest was bare and a chill wind whisteled down from the peaks surrounding. Nonchantly, and with much British pluck we strode forth deleiberately without fuss, reaching for the plume of hot sulferous streams that serve as "les douches". Then we were in the pools for two hours of soaking relaxing joy. There is something ancient, Roman, decadent, about lazing in a hot spring as the sun goes down, watching other people, come and go, splish and splash. The clump, clump, clumpclump, clump of the shivering steps from glass door to the first hot shower. Each clutching ones body parts as if the cool twilight air would rip them from us, given half a chance. With great stoic phlegm, I perused the cold bathroom at my childhood home created much less fuss, yet was twice as cold regularly.

Then were else can you watch young woman smile almost furtively to their boyfriends as they manouvre astride a hot jet of water gushing deep from the magma in the netherworld. And young men make amusing remarks to each other about "pour votre plaisir".

The first hour saw the sun go down and wrinkles appear on every digit. Steam willowed away over the wall and down the valley. Another hour and it would be dark! To sit in hot water, in the cold air yet warm. What luxury. One by one the pool lights flickered into life and new shadows were cast. On my back with the hotest jet pummelling by nagging vertabra 4 and 5, arced by the smooth circular concrete pan wall of the pool. Looking up, fish eyed, at a greying bluish sky. Dark trees overhanging to the left, with sharp jagged rocks. Bare trunks and twigs to teh right. Hills forward reaching upward, covered with scrub above the tree line. A bright pool light burns the water from down deep.

There is soemthing elemental about stanbding in the rush of cold wind defiantly. I can understand the Scandanavians and their rolliong in snow act after a sauna. Well, a bit. For the first time in weeks I have no back pain. My knees are no longer sore. My shoulder does not ache. They have something in these baths. Just ready for a longer ride. Perhaps tomorrow.

A second try

So a second try. This time the early afternoon sun was beating down and within a hundred metres I was warm enough to remove at least one layer. Tieing my shirt around my waste I pondered whether it looked cooler to have its tail straming in the wind to give the impression of speed or whether it was simply better to sit on it. In reality neither looked as cool as lycra. A few more excursions are needed before I buy myself a lycra suit.

So up the gentle constant slope I peddle towards the snow capped mountains once again. Within a minute or two I was happy with progress, picking up speed nicely. "How easy this has become in so short a time, I thought optomistically.

Within another couple of hundred metres I was puffing and straining at the knees. How hard it had become. I should have taken another rerst day. You can overtrain, I thought. It is a strange thing about cycling the same route. The difficult parts become easier. Where one thinks of yestrdays strain and puffing wheezing chest, one finds ease. The genetles slopes that seemed easy yesterday become mountainous.

The sun burned bright as I turned westward towards Finestret. Quite low in the winter sky it lit the grey trunks of the peach orchards, casting long shadows. A distant chaffinch chirped and a slient robin bobbed sliently amongst the bare fruit branches. A slight wind softly moaned. A far away dog barked. Mostly there was a calm silence. A car slid softly into earshot soft at first, yet buidling to a rumbling crescendo as it sped past and away into the distant hills.

Finestret seemed ever more windy, ever more down hill than yesterday. Across the bridge and out of thre village past the smallholdings, and high on the terrace above the river. Those in cars driving along a road with a precipice on one side think of danger. How much more so on a wobbly bycycle, on a bumpy road, only centimetres form the edge of the road? Down the verticle wall and steep bank the river splashed and bubbled some 60 feet below in the dark shadows of the trees.

With greatre confidence I was up the gears into top. Speeding along, taking advantage of the slopes to get the legs moving. Using momentum to carry me up the small undulations. Safer away from the river, opening up a rhythmn.

The main road came up soon with a lull in the traffic for a while allowing me to keep up the speed for the slight dip before the short sharp climb to the village turning. Past the two huge Alsatians at Mestres, the coal mearchants. "Do they not yet recognise me," I think, as they start to snral viciously from behind their reinforced chained fence. And so to the long drag into the village. peddling furiously today, again noting the slight downhill before the steep rise into the village, making life easy by knowing the route. Exhausted I get off outside El Puig, pushing the bike the last short steep slope up to the house. My knees ache and burn and I stagger the fisrt steps unsure that walking was meant to be for these legs. A second trip is over and I already feel much fitter.

I bought a bike yesterday

I bought a bike yesterday. I wasn't going to but its Christmas, and finding myself in the biggest superstore in the world, one where slim girls on roller blades skim past you like metoeors on a summer night. Perhaps to stop thje boredom of shopping I find myself looking at the bikes. I had it in mind to buy one. It's not that I need one. I have one at home but its such a pain transporting it in the car to go riding anywhere nice. Then I have never felt the spongy bounce of a bike with springs. All the modfern ones have them these days. It wasn't even that Stephen's words, "It'll be a sin not to have a mountain bike round here" rang too loudly. Nor even the obvious truth that I ned to get out an exercise far more. No I think it was the sheer helpfulness of the shop assistant. "Can I help you?" "So you would like a bike?" "This one is no good for you it is too small, you need one this size.""Oh we have no more of that sort but I will see what I have in the store." i was genbuyinely delighted to leave the store pushing a new bycycle.

That was lucky I thought. I had been mullling over the idea of buying a keyboard, even had a look at some music in a shop a few days ago. I had to explain to the shopkeeper there that I played three instruements, all badly. In fact, I didn't have time to play three instruments which ios why I am so bad at each. I practice little enough for one, so dividing my limirted skills between three is fairly foolhardy. However, my logic is that I am developing the skill of sight reading music rather than making any noticeably good sound.

So tonight I found myself on my first bike ride in the new campaign to be healthy and fit. I say first bike ride. Of course as soon as I got back yestreday I took it out the wrapper. Tightened up a few nuts and set off up the road. I would have said down the road but you notice slight inclines as if they were Anurpurna when you are on a bike. Within seconds I was wheezing like a lifetime smoker, sucking a car exhaust, with a tourniquet round the throat. My knees ached and tore senew with every push. I will not go into the delights of the gentlemans saddle which was provided, surely by Spanish Inquisition and Brother Co. Ltd.

True to say a half hour round the block exhausted me enough for me to realise that I had to go further and quickly if I'm ever to get fit. So off I set. The sun was already setting and bright light from the western mountains cast shadows on the wintry hillsides. The golden browns of autumn wer still bright on the cork oak and contrasted with the redddish glow of the bare fruit orachards. Towering high above the whiote capped Canigou oozed cold air down to this valley to bite the cheeks and fingers.

Off I set vaguely hopeful to reach Finestret. After taking it easy the 600 metres to the turning, the firts point of no return, I pleased myself by pressing onwards. Puffing and rosy cheeks by now I was still able to percieve the slight but noticeable incline that made heavy work of the job at hand. Exhaustion was easdily forgetable to the pain induced by that seat. It's true that from your childhood days, you never forget how to ride a bike. My word it must be equally true, as you get older, that you do forget how to sit on an uncomfortable saddle.

At Joc, I turned westward into the dimming sky. A road on the right offered a possibility of a second quick return, but one unknown to me, and I shunned it. ahead in a dip, stood Finistret. I hate the thought of dips. The instant pleasure of picking up speed and the fastare and faster clackety clack of the cogs. Moving up the gears and picking up speed. Knowing that regrets will soon come. Every dip is follwed by another hill.

Actually, I don't recall another hill coming out of Finestret. A lovely village by now in half light with yellow street lights casting shadows across the narrow winding turning lane. Down hill and across a bridge and a sharp right again alonmg the river, cut deep into a gorge. Woodland opens out to flat farmland and orchards soon to be covered by the growing darkness. Time to light the gloom by the 3 volt headlamp and red glow of the rear light.

"Not too fast down this gentle slope. Remember the time when you were pressing on along the river towpath and hit a half brick? Ended up half over the handles bars and hit an elderberry tree. Not tonight! Not here in the middle of the macquis! Still I have a phone. I'm somwhere on a road past Finistret. No I don't know where." Still going downhill, mostly, up in high gears.

"I know its the main road. That will be the killer up hill. Then that long dusty drag into the village. I bet that's up hill all the way." "I'll be able to get off and walk". It was very black by the time I hit the main road. There was not too much nosiy traffic, although the fumes were noticeble. Having taken my downhill rest I was ready for the hill, and for three quarters of it my speed and by now general fitness overcome the difficulty with ease. So too the long drag into the village. By now I must have swept away the cobwebs and grown in fitness. I must be stronger than I thought. I could do that again! Maybe later in the week?