Our Guardian Angels

For Aline, Pete, Paul and Art….

May your guardian angels waft you onward and upward and may you rest in peace

a beautiful gentle quiet up

I don’t know how anyone could cycle through the beauty of this world without believing in a higher power – Someone much stronger than we are.  Each and every day I feel looked after and protected - no matter what the weather or the terrain.

an enamel butterfly in a shop in Rocamadour

There are little signs of encouragement: the songs of the birds from cuckoo to dove, the croaks of noisy frogs, and the flutter of the butterfly accompanying me as I toil up a long hill.

And when we most need it there are people, our guardian angels, who meet us and greet us and help us out in one dilemma or another.

dry in la cabane

Near the end of the first week of cycling we had a 53 kilometre ride into Uzes.  While it was not warm, we enjoyed our morning of cycling: gentle ups and downs and very nice scenery.  Just before 12:30 I started to rain and we found a road-side grocery store where we bought bread and cheese and fruit for our lunch. We had thought we could huddle under the lady’s awning as we ate as some protection from the rain but no, she was closing the shop and going home for lunch. Where could we shelter? The trees were young and sparse and there was not another building in sight. She took pity on us and called to a man who was chatting under the awning, “Jacky, peut tu ouvrir la cabane de chasseurs?”  She went on to explain that we had bought our provisions from her. Jacky led us along the building and around the side to an old hunting cabin which he unlocked.

la cabane des chasseurs

It had electricity, chairs and tables as well as the hooks and knives and tables for butchering the wild boar and deer they hunt in the area. It was a deluxe shelter for us and we thanked him as he showed us how to lock up when we were finished.  The thunder was loud, the rain pelted down but we stayed dry for the next hour until the storm passed.  We rode into Uzes on nearly dry roads. And we had no way of thanking that guardian angel.

the rushing river at St Guilhelm le Desert

One afternoon when Minas was doing some bike maintenance, he discovered that the screw that held my bike seat in the proper position had cracked and he had no replacement. The next morning in the rain we tried to find a hardware store in the nearby town but we were unlucky. As a last resort, Minas stopped in at the gas station and lo and behold it was also a bike rental and repair shop. The gentleman was a bit of a perfectionist and while I sheltered from the cold and the rain, next to the portable heater in the shop, he found the right sized screw and fixed my seat.  All the while, Minas was contemplating calling a taxi. By the time the gentleman had finished, the rain had stopped and we were happy to think about riding. And this guardian angel would take no money for his time or material.

about to rain again

Unfortunately, the rain returned and we resigned ourselves to riding in it. When it really came down, we found first a bus shelter and then a large tree until finally, at the top of a col, another set of guardian angels awaited us in their brand new camping van. 

the sign where George and Jac welcomed us

George and Jac, a British couple, invited us to take coffee with them in their camper. That turned into lunch and lots of great conversation as the rain beat upon the roof and the camper shook from the wind.  

The camper van

George then offered to drive us and our bikes to Caunes Minervois, our next destination, even though it was definitely out of their way. I very quickly agreed. We loaded our bikes into their spacious luggage compartment and set off for the Hotel Marbrerie, an old marble polishing factory. 

Hotel Marbrerie in LaCaune Minervois

We wanted them to stay and have dinner with us, but they felt they wanted to get home so we settled for coffee and cake.  We admired the peculiar red and white marble of the area in the hotel shop and chatted as if we had been friends forever. Some guardian angels are like that. One of Jac’s famous lines when I tried to thank her for her kindness was, “I wouldn’t leave a dog out in that weather.” Later that evening I saw little marble heart necklaces in the hotel shop and I bought two: one for me to remind me of this guardian angel story and one which I sent to Jac to remind her of her kindness to two soaking wet and very cold cyclists.

polished red marble hearts

On the day that we cycled into Albi, it was raining a little so we wisely found a bicycle path along an old railway line which eliminated the traffic and most of the ups and downs. 

a piste cyclable

Of course we had to join the main road eventually which we did around noon. Our plan had been to get to the city in time to change and have lunch there. As we were cycling the busy road into the city, it started to pour with rain. I kept my head down and focused on cycling the road ahead when Minas screamed at me. He had stopped to take cover under the overhang of a newly finished building on the other side of the road. I joined him. Then I noticed that right next door was a bakery and I told him I thought buying something to eat might be a god idea. He told me to go ahead but he would wait. Two minutes later he was in the shop beside me saying lunch might be a good idea.  There was a bar table in the corner and the woman couldn’t have been more welcoming. We had expected to eat our mini quiches out of paper bags, standing by our bikes under the overhang as the rain pelted down.  She told us to get set up at the corner table and she heated the quiches, cut us some bread, poured us some water and served us in style in the corner of her boulangerie. Coffee and cake followed and we managed it all before this guardian angel closed her shop at 1pm for lunch. And miracle of miracle of miracles, the rain stopped for the rest of our short ride into the city.

flowers grow out of the bridge at Albi

If you think the French have a lot of sympathy for cyclists – you would be right. And they have even more respect for the sanctity of the noon time meal and for eating in general.

the corner window table with a view of the bridge

 And that takes us to our meal of the week, a gastronomical tour de force, enjoyed in the tiny village of Belcastel at the Auberge du Vieux Pont.

The restaurant and the hotel are run by two sisters: one, the chef, along with her husband and the other the elegantly attired madame at the front of the house. It was ridiculously expensive but the place was full on a Tuesday night so they must have a far reaching reputation and it was certainly finer fare than any we have had on this trip. We began with an amuse bouche  of  tiny crepes with a foie gras and mango mixture in a shot glass. 

asperges et rhubarbe entree

Our entree was poached rhubarb  and asparagus in a lemon verbena foam.

lamb plat

The main course was lamb with peas done three ways: pureed, in the shell and out. The garnish was a crispy stick of lamb fat. The wine was a delicious bottle of Marcillac with violet undertones and we had regional cheeses to finish it all off.  It was a heavenly meal but with no angels in sight.

And so good-night, my angels.... until next time.

Cirq-Lapopie in the Lot