Le main roads

Anyone with any kind of experience of French roads knows that just because a road is classified as D doesn't mean that road is a quaint country byway. That is because there are also red D roads and yellow D roads. Anyway, your safest bet is to get on the white roads. As it was a bank holiday, however, we used the absence of trucks to hotfoot the 12 miles to Gournay en Bray along the D915. By 10am we had just about reached half way. We stopped for cwaffee and watched the locals, with great panache, knock back the booze at 10 in the morning. Unlike the British, the French make drinking look like an intellectual exercise - even just after breakfast.
We took the N31 for a few miles before a sharp right to St Germer de Fly and the D129 to take us over to the D3. Very quaint, old villages of red brick and coarse mortar straddled the quiet road. We encountered our first hill of the trip and my 42 lbs extra of lard immediately exerted some g-force type force while the other two sped off. The three of us had between 9-11kg on our racks. But I was also carrying another 19kg in comfort fat. So, they disappeared up the hill while I went down to granny +2. A few hills later and after a couple of food stops we arrived at the D3 at about 2pm. This is the worse time of day - the graveyard shift. The lack of sleep begins to enjoy its mischief. Lack of sleep plays tricks on the mind. I thought, for moment, that I was Georgie Best lying on that infamous bed with Miss World, champagne and a suitcase full of money wondering where it all went wrong.
The weather had held up but for one shower and there were occasional splashes of pastel blue amongst the opaque grey white clouds. We caught up with or were caught up by various small groups of UK cyclists some of which were probably on a charity run. These groups did not have tents and were therefore spending a good proportion of everyone's hard earned sponsorship money on B and Bs. There must be room for sponsored camping runs. None of the groups followed as we continued on our route to Triel sur Seine. A sudden spectacular descent heralded the Seine. We crossed the dark green river on the town bridge before taking a right for the campsite. Not in an auspicious location, the campsite lay beside the river next to TGV line and an trading estate. There seemed to be a farm full the noisiest farm animals, so if it wasn't a chorus of roosters, dogs and bleating sheep, it was the thunder of the 19.45 to Rouen storming past at 700 miles an hour or however fast the French brag thse darned trains go at. There are two campsites here the second one down, Ile Roi with its naff video on the intrawebnet, looks, in reality, tastier than the crustier Quatre Arpents which seemed to specialise in dark, dank, creepy corners. Mouldy caravans, sagging awnings and upturned patio furniture gave the game away that this was a barely used, last resort campsite for the desperate or those who didn't know any better. The woman owner of seventy with her dyed hair and virulent lipstick was very hospitable as she walked us over a narrow culvert, through a patch of stinging nettles to a small field. But, being near Paris, it was a hefty 28 euros for the albeit generous pitch. The showers were normally a whopping 2 euros each but they let us use them for free. It had an air of the Bates Motel and if Hitchcock had had a lower budget for Psycho he could have well done with a flustered Janet Leigh pulling into the spooky Bates 'Belle View' campsite instead and Master Bates helping her pitch her two man lightweight festival tent.
Once the tents were up and we'd eaten the basics - pasta et tuna - the  beguiling sun vanished to be replaced by torrential rain that continued through the night, though the highly unpleasant toilet runs were somehow spared. Men over 40 and their nightly trips to the toilet: this subject is never covered in movies. The vulnerable wife never suddenly wakens in the middle of the night, bolt upright with fear as hubby has mysteriously disappeared. Her grimace turns to a look of curiosity as she hears a torrent of water, followed  by a flush. Her husband returns to the bedroom with a sheepish look about him and the wife hugs him.