Sunday 26 July.
The rain stayed on during the night and it was till coming down when we wakened, so we gave the walking a miss. We lay in bed for about an hour reading the newspaper. Moira got up first and had her shower then while I was shaving and washing she made the breakfast. She was using up the food we had in the fridge and freezer before we leave on Tuesday, so we had two sausages each with our normal 'full English' to finish them off.
After I cleaned up the dishes the only job I still had to do in the house was on the tiles and I mixed up some cement to use as grouting. There was the tiles I had laid at the bathroom door to do, also I cut away some of the grout that was cracked between some of the tiles. Moira rubbed the cement in between the tiles and then cleaned them up. There are still a few tiles that are creaking or sounding hollow which we will deal with when we come out again at the end of the year, but it looks a lot better than when we arrived two months ago.
We spent the rest of the morning reading the paper and relaxing with a cup of tea. Moira made soup for lunch today and we had it with a French type baguette that she crusted up in the oven. I checked the time for the final stage of the 'Tour de France', the procession in to Paris. It was listed at 4 pm which seemed to me to be later than normal unless they were just showing the final 10 laps round the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe. I settled to watching the Hungarian Gran Prix until the cycling started. They had just started their warm-up lap when the power went off again. Moira had gone down to see Pat in the bottom house to say cheerio before we leave and I was left in on my own. I spent the two hours until the power was restored working on the 'Telegraph' crossroad which I managed to compete.
When the TV did tune in again it turned out that the cycling hadn't started. They were starting in Paris this year, going round the outskirts and suburbs for 40 km then arriving in the centre for the serious 10 final laps. Earlier in the afternoon there had been a woman's race as a build up and to keep the waiting crowds amused. Unfortunately the weather was dreadful with torrential rain and they were skidding and falling off their bikes as they did the laps by the Champs Elysees. When the men started it was still raining and it was decided that it was too dangerous and that the final times would be taken when they crossed the 'finish line' at the start of their first lap. The leaders, like Froome, Quintana, Valverde and Sagan, still had to complete the full course i.e. the full 10 laps but they could ride at the back and keep out of trouble. The sprinters were still going to race flat out so I couldn't understand how the changes helped them in riding safely.
In the end when they did get going it was an anti-climax. They more or less trundled along together behind a safely car for the whole 40 km until they came to the time point on the Champs Elysees. The riders spent the time chatting to one another and posing for photographs. When they got to the Champs Elysees they still took it easy for the first two laps with the Sky team casually leading the way. After that it got a bit more interesting with a few breaks from the peleton and the speed picking up. It only got exciting on the last lap as the sprinter's teams started to form into lines to lead out their fast men. In the end it was the German Griepel who won again, his fourth stage win. Cavendish finished eighth, it hasn't been his year or maybe he is getting old, I think sprinting is a young man's game.
We continued watching afterwards with the presentation of all the awards. For some reason George Osbourne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer got in on the act and made the presentation to Froome. I can't understand why they are so desperate to claim Froome as being British when he was born in Kenya, educated in South Africa and now lives in Monaco.
The last part of this year's 'Tour' didn't finish until 8 am. We listened to the radio until 'Call the Midwife' came on BBC Entertainment. It was another that we had seen before but it was good. Off to bed again at 10 pm as normal.
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