Giving it all away before it’s too late
And so it came to pass that we did return to Les Gets and there was much muttering and piss taking and blocking of me on Twitter. And in the resulting peace and quiet there was great rejoicing, so up yours, Twitter haters.
Anyway, here we are again and it’s bloody fabluss to be back, as we say round by where I live for some of the year. When I’m not here.
We took our usual winding route to get here, via Reims which was bearably hot and delivered some of the best Moroccan food I’ve ever tasted,
then unbearably hot Dijon, which is one of my favourite cities when it’s not pushing 40 degrees. That sort of heat makes this Celt intolerably fractious and I was marched back to the hotel, where it was suggested I had a sleep. Pretty much how I used to deal with a tetchy two year old Joe, really.
Les Contamines is where the proper holiday started. A precious couple of days with friends who we only get to see once a year. We packed a lot into those two days, including a spontaneous trip to my beloved Chamonix and an awful lot of charcuterie.
We’re both big Tour de France fans, so hitting the jackpot of an arrival into Morzine, followed by the first ever depart from Les Gets is something I’ve been looking forward to for months.
The mountain stage didn’t disappoint. It had everything. Spangled supporters who had been stoically propping up the fanzone bar for 6 hours before the first rider arrived. Stone splitting heat. The Thibault Pinot barmy army who jumped all over every team car that tried to make its way up and who leaped around and sang relentlessly for an unconscionable amount of time. A dinosaur. Two men in eye popping budgie smugglers. Welsh flags. Welsh people who materialised for a chat as soon as I unfurled mine. Grumpy English People. And riders. Who looked close to being utterly broken. Vingegaard and Pogačar were together, both an unappealing shade of grey and looking like one tiny push from my flagpole would have taken them out.
It was an amazing afternoon that I’ll never forget.
In the extraordinary way that elite athletes have, they all looked refreshed and ready to rock again the next morning. I’d have been roaring for something to put me out of my misery, but off they went, all cheery, to do it all over again. We set up camp in Madame’s for the morning and pretty much ate and drank our way through it all, culminating in another afternoon nap.
Speaking of elite athletes…we’ve been here 3 days and I’ve run twice. After 12 months on the bench with a stress fracture, this feels nothing short of miraculous – especially this morning when I was able to hike up to the top of Ranfoilly from the village for the first time in two years – and then run the 5 miles down again.
There have been plenty of times over the past 14 months where I’ve wondered if I’ll be able to run like this again…and here we are. Sitting on my bench, looking at La Dame Blanche and eating my slightly squashed petit déj #2 felt pretty good.
I’ve got an awful lot to be thankful for in my life just now – and being out here for another 6 weeks is right up there.
