Monday 19 September 2011

ou est le qwerty keyboard

on a french keyboard qnd qll the letters qre in the zrong plqce qs you cqn see: vaguely annoying as now i have to concentrate and look at what im writing: full stops have become semi colons; commas colons and a is q qnd m is zhere the apostrophe should be: that is a lot to contend zith:

here is the story so far, within the limitations of this heqdqche inducing keyboard (please excuse lack of apostotrophes and cohesion)

day 1 _ saturday 17 sep
literally rolled off the ferry after 2 bottles of red wine and some vodka mixed with some random orange concoction, courtesy of benji the random french boy who we met on the ferry and from whom i learnt to say 'il y a beaucoup des vagues' which means there are lots of waves. after stumbling back to our reclining (over optimistic description) seats, at which point i apparently stood on someone's head (cant remember that but that doesnt mean it didnt happen), we tried to sleep but the boat decided to pitch all over the place and get a bit wibbly: youd think drunkeness would help but it didnt. i lay on the floor in my sleeping bag listening to my ipod and then the waves hitting the boat.

one hour of sleep, if that, and the greeting of pitch black france at 630am with sideways rain made for a slightly delirious and hysterical start to the trip. i had my passport in one pocket and a jamaica ginger cake in the other. stopped to change into cycling attire and fixed my slightly broken wing mirror with a safety pin which made me deliriously happy for 2 reasons - that i hadnt brought safety pins in vain, and that i had already successfully fixed something bike related.

tootled along in the still dark, slightly fragilely, through roscoff, a charming fishing village would be the guidebooks description, and mine too. consulted the map and carried on south on the d something to have breakfast in st-pol-de-leon. observations so far - french people are very friendly, croissants are very nice, hangovers are not the best way to start a day of cycling but they do make for lots of hysterical giggling. for me anyway, not so much for james.

altogether did 25miles today, past lots of savoy cabbage fields but not a rabbit in sight (proabably all been put into pate de la campagne poor little kanninchens - cant remember the french word but german will do, it's all the same innit). weather was flat and grey as was the terrain. not a campsite to be seen in any direction so we bit the proverbial bullet and got a cheap hotel room in landivisiau as the options were either that or continue tout droit in a haze of fatigue and drizzle until we found a place du camping which wasnt looking likely. we made up for blowing the budget at the first opportunity by at least cooking on the camping stove in the room and buying cheap ingredients from the local shopi. thats the name of the shop not a typo by the way.

day 2 _ sunday 18 sep
had a lie in, well deserved. after porridge packed up and left down the d something to a lovely small town called landerneau where we had a coffee on a cobbled street. lunch in le faou another little town on the d something. stayed the night at a campsite in chateaulin.

i am going to have to stop typing right noz qs it is literqlly too ,uch effort for ,e to find the right letters; and by the ti,e ive thought of zhqt i zqnt to type ive forgotten it qgqin zhilst looking for the right letters to zrite it zith: hopefully the next keyboard i find will not have this particular affliction. im going to drink a biere now to get over it. what kind of crazy country would make a keyboard that you cant get a full stop on unless you press shift question mark?

more, and better quality, soon. a bientot x

1 comment:

  1. Loving the updates - good luck with the cycling. I might come to join you - this might take only 1/2 a day or so as I cycled 197 miles in one day the other day. I wonder if Kit would ever read about that on this blog. Also hung out with babs and marietta, it was special times. Well, I've just realised that this is not facebook so this random chat should not be on here but as I only managed 1.5 ish hours sleep during those 197 miles, I'm sure I can be forgiven. Good luck with the keyboards - that is how most of us type, not 93 wpm fyi. Continue having a lovely time - let me know your eta in Spain - perhaps we could rendez-vous? Love you xx

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