Wednesday 14 July.
Another walk this morning before breakfast. The weather was looking a lot better with the clouds having cleared and a nice blue sky; it was also feeling a lot warmer. We headed up to Edinburgh Rd then down the hill passed the Tennis Club to Mdoni Rd where we turned up the hill to Park then Old Faith before going down to Bird Rd and home. We were going at a brisk pace and when we reached Old Faith there was a couple of women walkers in front of us, we pushed to overtake them then left them far behind. It was about 3/4 hour today that we were out and wanted to make sure we got back for the woman from Stuttaford's with the forms to be signed.
I made the breakfast and then washed and tidied up the kitchen before she arrived. It didn't take long to get all the paper worked completed. I asked for an approximate time for delivery of the boxes in Scotland and she said about 3 months. As we will likely be away in Spain at that time I said that Suzanne would be at the house for it arriving. She said they would require an ID for Suzy before they would delivery it into her hands. She must be thinking that it was South Africa where they could easily delivery to the wrong house and the person would just accept it. They don't understand that our neighbours would take the stuff in if we weren't there or if the delivery people thought we were just at the shops they would leave all the boxes in the back garden and it would be safe enough.
Once she had gone Moira brought the t-shirts and other odds and ends through to the dining area and stacked it with the rest of the boxes. Everything was ready for collection tomorrow. While she was doing this I finished off clearing the adhesive from the tile spaces I had removed in the bathroom. It was all ready for laying a new tile. The little box of tile cement that we had bought I discovered was sufficient to lay only one tile. I mixed it with water and there was just enough and no more for the one tile. It seemed a fairly solid base once it was in place. It should be set by tomorrow morning.
It was an early lunch today before heading for Southport and the bowls. It was a big difference in the weather now, very warm and requiring only to wear our sport shirts and shorts. There weren't many at the club today, only enough for 2 rinks of trips and 2 of pairs. Moira and I were playing pairs but in different matches. I was lead and my skip was Bob. We won the first two ends but then the opposition came back and we didn't win another shot before the tea break. The tea must have helped as we made a come-back in the second half and won the match on the final end. It had been a close game all the way through and most ends were only won by the odd shot. I payed quite well and managed to get a couple of my bowls close to the jack each end. Moira's match was also close but she was on the losing side this time. I bought the other lead a drink while Moira got treated being on the losing side. We stayed for a half an hour and chatted over our drinks before getting home.
When we got in the cycling was in the final kilometres of today's stage so we waited until later to watch the highlights for the action and the result. After dinner we watched the usual early evening quizzes until 8 am when the cycling came on. The stage was again in the Pyrenees with more mountains for the riders to climb. The route was 188 km and started in Pau and finished in Cauterets. Cauterers was where we finished when we walked the first half of the GR 10. From there we caught a bus to Lourdes.
Lac de Gaube, Cauterets |
The route went through Lourdes after leaving Pau then up the long climb over first the Col d'Aspin 1490m, next came the monster Col du Tourmalet 2115m followed by a steep twisting descent before the shorter final climb to the finish on the Cote de Cauterets 817m. I think this might be the route we took in the bus (the other way) to get to Lourdes. On the highlights programme they didn't show any of the early parts of the stage but moved to when they were tackling the climb up the Col du Tourmalet. There was a breakaway of 7 riders that was about 6 minutes ahead of the peleton but on the climb a Tinkoff-Saxo rider, Majka, broke away from the rest to cross the summit in the lead. The rest couldn't cut his lead on the fast descent, they were all going at the same speed, at times approaching 80 kph. At one point the leader had to avoid some cows that decided to cross the road at the same time.
He still had his advantage on the final ascent to the Cote de Cauterets and a comfortable win. In the main peleton there weren't any attacks on Froome and all the main contenders finished together. Except Nibili, last year's winner who was dropped on Tourmalet and is out of contention now. Tomorrow is the third and last day in the Pyrenees and there may be some challenges to the leader on the hills then.
It was nearly 10 pm when the cycling finished so it was straight to bed. The removal people from Stuttaford's come in the morning to pick up all the stuff we are sending back to Scotland.
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