Cycling from Chamonix to the Chatterbox Capital!!

I've finally found someone who chats more than me!!

3.5 year old Max definitely takes after his Mum, Mary, in the chatterbox stakes! Wow, we've nattered about all sorts already! Mary is putting him to bed now. Such a gorgeous little boy.

And another fantastic day for me on this tour! How lucky am I?

The day dawned beautifully. The snow capped mountains sparkled against powder blue skies and bright sunshine. It was utterly freezing! I stayed wrapped up in my sleeping bag to eat brekkie.

Thanks to bikes not being allowed on the main road from Chamonix, I ended up on stunning mountain roads through more spectacular, jaw-dropping scenery and through more exceptionally pretty mountain villages. And all in gorgeous, gorgeous hot sunshine.

The mountain road I was on was actually closed. I saw a few cyclists coming in the other direction and they said you could just about get through the closed road section. They were on road bikes and not carrying bulky panniers so I was a little concerned. It turned out it wasn't an issue at all. And the added benefit was no cars whatsoever - a dream!

I cycled to Cluses in the end to get the train to Mary's. Cruella the headwind was back and blowing rather unnecessarily viciously, I thought. And of course I was travelling in the same direction straight into Cruella for seemingly ever.

I turned up in Cluses and was buying my ticket with 1 minute to spare before the train arrived. Madame typed furiously away, steam coming off the keyboard, sweat pouring off her forehead so I could get that train. The next one was an hour later. There were a few comedy moments with me skidding through the train station with the metal on the bottom of my cycling shoes on tiled floors whilst trying to keep the bike upright at the same time and then flinging myself and the bike onto the train. Made it!

This train was then actually delayed a little later on - a French train delayed! I couldn't gather much from the announcement in rapid-fire French but they'd basically switched the electricity off so no train was going anywhere. It reduced the wait for my train in Annemasse and enabled me to eat my second lunch so it wasn't an issue.

And then I met Mary and Max (who had made a cake and a house out of stones whilst he was waiting - the cake was obviously bigger than the house...) waving wildly at their local railway station :-))

My greeting to them was me bent over my front wheel in concern as it had started grinding getting the bike off the train. Agh, panic!! I still needed to cycle to mary's house. It took a short while to discover the mudguard had been yanked out and had caught on the front wheel. Phew, easily sortable! Then I could say hello properly!

And since then Mary has been running around like a crazy thing whilst I've been looked after beautifully and allowed to completely relaaaax. She had even got some mini pastries in including, you guessed it, a mini pain aux raisins! Thank you fabulous Mary :-))

And oh, what food for dinner! An incredible caramelised fennel and onion tart with rocket salad and yummy bread followed by apple and blackberry crumble with apples and blackberries from their garden! I'm finally full!!

Hubby Rene has gone to a colleague's house-warming tonight so we've had a girls night in and a crumble party with Max.

Although it nearly is, this tour feels nowhere close to being over - there is still so much fun to be had!

Thank you again everyone for your lovely, lovely messages. Happy weekends y'all. And enjoy CavPav tomorrow, Otley cyclists.

Bye for now!

Andi xxx

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