When my alarm woke me up, the night's sky alone was impressive, meteors or not. The few constellations I do know we're lost in a sea of twinkling companions that I usually don't have the privilege of seeing in the UK. The band of the Milky Way was again visible, and there's something humbling about knowing this hazy glow is made up of millions upon millions of individual stars like our Sun, each with the potential to be at the centre of its own solar system and, for all we know, harbour life. All this is just within our own galaxy! Let's not forget there may be a billion other galaxies, each home to over a billion stars.
The shower itself was a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong time, or in the wrong direction, but I only saw maybe four or five meteors before I decided it was getting too cold and too damp. At this point I retreated in to the comfort of the tent. I'm still glad I gave it a go, though. If I hadn't, I would've just regretted it.
At 04:30, I was awoken by a pair of birds communicating with each other. One would squawk, and the other would reply with a longer bird call. It's not one I've heard before, and I managed to record it on my phone. Hopefully I won't forget when I'm back at home to research just what exactly they were. They sounded rather large anyway.
At a more reasonable hour of the morning, Jwan and I went our separate ways - he into town to find breakfast and coffee, and I to the supermarket to get my beloved cereal and something for lunch later on. Have I had my rant about French supermarkets yet? Aside from the daft opening hours some of them seem to observe, they seem to go out of their way to make shopping as difficult and time consuming as possible. In some such supermarkets, the aisles aren't labelled with what they contain, so finding the cereal dictates that one must weave in and out of every single aisle.
Then there are the queues. This morning there were four employees on the checkouts, two of which decided to close just as I arrived. This left me with two options, the checkout with four trollies and a basket, or the one with three trollies and two baskets. I chose the former, which of course was the wrong decision. As Sod's law goes, just as it was my turn to be served (after an age of waiting), another checkout opened. Cue the Frenchman who, if he was any more enthusiastic about the move would have literally dived to this newly opened checkout, fought his way to the front and proceeded to make a show of defending his privileged position until his wife wheeled down their trolley. Oh, and don't let me start going on about the gentleman who gracefully cut in front and me and Jwan while we were queuing the other day as though we weren't there. I'm not bitter. No, not at all. Rant over.
After my supermarket ordeal, I planned to set about on a bike ride around the local area, and maybe a bit further. Things sometimes don't go to plan, and this was one of them. My legs wouldn't permit me to cycle any further than I had to, as they were still complaining from yesterday's ride. Instead I made my way back to the campsite and, to put it bluntly, stuffed my face.
Following this I spent the afternoon lazing about, and what bliss it was. I've almost finished my novel, I've listened to some good music, dozed in the sunshine and the bike has been given a clean and a quick service. Jwan has just returned from an afternoon on a little beach on the river and has successfully found somewhere in town with some lovely Wifi goodness, where I'll publish this post (and yesterday's) as I don't expect much else to happen today. Sorry there are no photos with today's post. There have been none to take, unless you want one of me sprawled on the grass next to the tent, Kindle in one hand and water bottle in the other.
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