Waking and breakfasting with Wood Pigeons, three or four, and at least one young one, coo-coo-cooing in the trees above our heads, exploding upwards and outwards noisily as they move on. The robin providing a gentle, sweet autumn song as background and the chaffinch interposing occasional percussion...pinc, pinc, pinc. Magpies hack and cough and cackle. Then, surprise additions to the orchestra, a melodic willow warbler and a distant crow, honking.
Croissants for Chris and toast and marmalade for the economical one, using the last of the bread brought, frozen, from home.
Bicycles today, Chris grooms, saddles and tacks up ready for the day. Picnic is packed. French bread, French cheese, French salad and English fruit cake and chocolate.
First stop down at the waters' edge, magnificent, jaw dropping, along comes a leisurely legendary Osprey, twisting and dropping suddenly into the Loire, emerging with huge difficulty from the water, a massive, struggling fish hanging by its tail from the bird's talons. Twisting and shaking the water out of its feathers the osprey rises, manoeuvring the fish into an aerodynamically acceptable position, and it is off to eat breakfast, somewhere quiet. A man arrives with his two dogs which play and drink from the river. The bird is making its way along the river with its prize, and the man can hardly believe what Chris has photographed and shown him. We agree on the French for osprey, and immediately forget it, and he tells us that peregrines live under the next bridge. He has been a farmer, of sheep and goats, he made and sold goats cheese. He is 67, retired, and envies Chris's big camera. 'Un cadeau d'anniversaire especiale' we say. He likes his own camera, 300 euros, it takes very good pictures using film, better than digital.
We ride on and watch the peregrine frightening the lapwings, but not catching one.
It is very hot. We cycle across the railway bridge which has been made into a road bridge, two ways, with a small corridor for cycles each side. The bridge is littered with pieces of wing mirror, smashed into pieces; the bridge is too narrow.
We eat lunch in the shade, admiring the Loire, a Fleuve, not a Rivière, this is a serious waterway, merits a properly dignified name.
The route home is partly through woods, blessedly cool. Partly, it is through villages with homes excavated into the soft cliff face. We are glad to get back to comfortable chairs and a cold drink for one of us, a very large mug of tea for the other.
We have finished the last bottle of wine now. I do, really, hope we can find a Carrefour or a Leclerc tomorrow.
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