Friday 31/07

We woke up unusually early, for us, but managed to get on the road by about half past ten - as usual! Simon was the main cause of today's delay as he spent 40 minutes buying two bottles of water from a supermarket 100m away. WTF?

Filling stations were very few and far between, as we headed into Spain enroute to the N260 and Sort. We found an unmanned self-service station (which appears to be the norm here) but couldn't manage to get it to work with cards. Eventually a delightful old crone, in rubber gloves and wellingtons and who must have been at least ninety if she was a day, came out of the garden to screech at us in what must have been Catalan. With her hopping up and down, waving her arms and miming putting money in the cash slot, we eventually cottoned-on to what we needed to do -the card reader was mullered so we had to put in notes - DOH!

You pick up the N260 at Puigcerda, as you enter Spain, but it's not until exiting the town of La Seu d'Urgell that the pukka bit begins. This road was the best we'd been on - a few switchbacks on the upward slopes but then loads of fast sweeping bends, with open 100mph-plus curves over the top of the mountain, with the descent to Sort mirroring the upward climb. We did a victory lap of Sort centre before settling into a coffee at the Cafe Xau. This section of the N260 is 51km and we were really pleased we'd done it. The day before we almost decided to give it a miss as we had already done so many mountain roads. It was stunning. The ride back to La Seau was even better, much faster as we had an idea of what to expect and enough four, six or eight-wheeled traffic to make it interesting. We both agreed we'd like to come back next year and just spend a few days in this part of Spain. It's not that far from Barcelona and the Costa Brava, either.

At Le Seau, we headed for Andorra, but got delayed for a while when our route was blocked by an accident. Bensons were 21 Euros a carton (which was nice) and petrol was really cheap in Andorra. Simon now had his twelve countries under his belt, so we'd done them in a week. We opted for a tunnel, rather than another 'Col', for the approach to the French border as we really were all mountained-out by now. The toll-tunnel was really cold and quite long. We went through French customs, where a blonde woman officer - with pistol, of course - smoked a fag (probably from Andorra) whilst pulling cagers over. How cool did she look?!!

Stopping for Rod to have a fag of his own and to micturate, at the first lay-by we came to, Simon was pleased to see a French BMW mounted motard giving us the peace sign as he seemed determined to deck his footpegs on a nearby hairpin. Imagine Rod's surprise, if not exactly delight, to find one of the lenses of his reserve specs had popped out somewhere on the descent from Andorra. He didn't even know when it had gone, but after a year of wearing vari-focals found it strange to have to ride the next six hundred miles, or so, specless.

Despite the fag/piss-break, before we reached Ax-les-Thermes - just 22km further on - Rod called a halt because he was starting to fall asleep. This was a really pretty little spa-town and we'd have loved to spend the night at the busy hotel-bar, where we stopped, but it was full. Perversely, whilst Rod revived with a coffee followed by a citron 'presse', Simon fell asleep in his chair! There was a funny protest going on, with people sitting on chairs on the roofs of their cars (?) because they'd booked accommodation with balconies but had none. So, in typical French style, they formed an ad-hoc protest group.

With Rod wide-awake and Simon rejuvenated by his series of power-naps, we headed for Toulouse where we decided to stay the night. Stopping only for Rod to buy ladies reading glasses (thro'out France pharmacies only seem to stock women's 'lunettes de lire'), we reached La Grisolles, situated north of Toulouse, and booked into the Relais de Carrigues. This was a typical large 'Logis de France' with a nice menu.

Whilst enjoying a beer (or four) en-terrasse, Rod was amused but Simon dismayed, when an obviously loopy French bird, called Laurence, came and sat at the next table before coming over to ask us if we'd like some white wine as she'd 'accidentally ordered a large carafe and it was much too much for her.' She told us her 'too strange, too funny but tragic' life-story, which is far too complex to include here, whilst smoking all our tailor-mades. She told us she'd already eaten and was walking to a local bar where there was 'musique' so we bid her 'bon soiree' and then watched a very battered Audi A3 lunge out of the car park towards the village - walk my arse!

After we'd eaten and gone back on the beers, the battered A3 re-appeared and Laurence proceeded to order and eat three desserts. Rod returned the compliment of the wine, but drank it himself like a pint of beer and left her asleep at the table, pointing out to the patron that madamoiselle needed his assistance, ha ha! Rod really enjoyed this bizarre encounter, which was quite in the tradition of his foreign tours, whilst Simon hated it.