Moving on to Morvan

Sundays are meant to be our rest day, no riding and no blogging, but we've a bit of catching up to do - there's been various things going on which we haven't included in our daily reports.

None of us had a restful night last night, with the wind howling around the chalet, rain lashing against the windows and a steady drip, drip, drip from the rain that was blowing through the door.  A foretaste of the Irish summer, perhaps?
We had been alerted to the possibility of the150km/hour winds (100mph approx), so we stabled the horses just before dark.  They had strange stable mates, as our biker co-residents also stabled their bikes!

I was a little concerned about Flurry, as he hadn't eaten all his hay, and had relatively few droppings in his stable.  He did eat some more hay while we were having breakfast, so we came to the conclusion that he had been given the last couple of flakes from a sour bale and didn't like it.  Hopefully that's all it was - he seems ok this evening anyway.
The journey to the Morvan did not go as well as it could have.  We used Googlemaps and Nigel the SatNav to find directions, and both proposed different routes.  I then complicated matters by using the road atlas and proposed a third route.  We missed a turn, looped back to the correct road, missed another turn, and then saw a bright yellow sign for Lyon, with the word Bis in front of it.  Lyon being the second major town on our route, we of course decided to follow this sign, thus throwing a fourth route into the mix.  Big mistake.  Bis routes are designed to take innocent foreigners and get them lost in the middle of France.  They are alleged to be for the holiday maker who wants to get off the beaten track, but Lyon was to the West and North of us, yet the Bis route insisted on bringing us East...and East...and East.  Just how far off the beaten track can anyone want to go?  The highlight of our diversion was this interesting display :

There was a sign wishing Christian truck drivers Bonne Route... they must be very lost truck drivers to be going through this little place, miles from any big towns!
Eventually, we decided that enough was enough, and we reverted to the road atlas again, using Nigel the SatNav to help us through the last bit and find our hotel.  We had expected the journey to take four hours, it actually took six.  The wind was still quite strong, and ever so often a gust would catch the trailer and start it swaying - a bit scary, really.  We could only stop briefly, as Gigi doesn't "do" standing still in a box, and starts pawing and kicking, and generally getting herself worked up.
Anyway, we got here in the end, we are in La Grand Verrière, a small village in the middle of green, rolling hills.  It's very different country to either the Drôme or Provence - much gentler.  It's also got different weather.  We arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm, complete with hailstones.  The forecast is for wet weather most of the week, so I guess the wet gear will have to be dusted off.
Due to the length of the journey and my slight concern about Flurry this morning, we've decided to give the horses an easy day tomorrow.  We'll set off from here in the morning and see how they feel.  If they're very tired, we'll get the LSH to pick us up early, but we're hoping to cover somewhere between 15 and 20km.
Which brings us to our "issues".  We've realised that we're unlikely to make the 500km.  There have been a number of things which have gone against us, first of all, my broken wrist meant that the horses were not as fit as we would have wanted at the start, so we've had to build in quite a few "easy" days for them.  We had originally hoped to average 25km/day, but because of the easy days, we've only averaged 20km/day so far.  We also ended up leaving Ceréste a couple of days later than planned - a couple of days seems like nothing, but it's possibly 50km if it's two good days.
Our third issue is that the LSH has to leave us next Thursday - a work crisis of some sort.  This means we have no driver to collect us or to move our gear to our next lodgings, so we won't be able to continue to ride from point to point.  We will be settling in one place from Wednesday on, and will ride circular loops from that point.  It also means there will be no-one to mind the (occasionally leaky) hyper-terriers during the day, so we will be limited to two two-hour rides per day, one in the morning and one in the evening, with a break for quality time with doggies in the middle of the day.
Finally, our fourth issue.  We're not sure yet when George Mullins will be able to transport the horses, but it could be any time from next Saturday on.  Worst case, we've only got five days of riding left.  We're hoping to break the 400km mark, but even that may not be possible.
We're both gutted at the prospect of not making our goal.  We will do the best we can this week, but the horses' welfare must come first, and they will let us know if we're asking too much of them.
Some light relief to finish (daughters, look away now, you will probably blush):
We arrived at our hotel today, and legged it up to our room to watch the second half of the Leinster/Clermont-Auvergne match (HUGE congrats to Leinster and Ulster for making it an all-Irish Heineken Cup final!).  After the match, we all chilled out - Anne went off to her room, the LSH went for a shower and I stretched out on the bed.  So after his shower, the LSH joined me on the bed for a cuddle, moved in for a kiss, I closed my eyes (as you do) and next thing I knew, I was being passionately licked all over my mouth and nose!  Cookie had intervened while our faces were inches apart, and decided to join in the fun!  I'm afraid she completely spoiled the moment, I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face, and was still quite red-eyed when we went down for dinner a few minutes later!

We are doing Le Big Trek to raise funds for Assistance dogs for families of children with autism. If you like our blog please take the time to donate at http://www.mycharity.ie/event/martine_greenlees_event
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