A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Au Petit Chez Soi the restaurant is called on the D41 just as it leaves the village. An uninspiring exterior, nicely decorated inside and wonderful food that wasn't expensive.
OK, detail. I sat and had a demi-pêche while browsing the menu waiting for the food to be ready since it was only just after 12.00. In the end I went for onion tart, magret of duck, and a ppr (petit pichet de rosé).
The first dish arrived: a huge tureen of soup. Not what I thought I'd ordered but it was very tasty so I served my'self four bowls of it from the tureen. Then a portion of onion tart arrived. Oops, the soup was just a 'get you started freebee'; perhaps I shouldn't have gorged my'self on it?
Next course, magret of duck with sauté potatoes and a wine sauce. Then a plate of cheeses but since by this time I'd finished the ppr and the proprietor was also concerned that rosé just wasn't the thing to drink with cheese he gave me a free petit pichet of red. Then the dessert, I chose fromage frais with honey. All that for 9€!
I could barely cycle and whatever aerodynamic advantage a recumbent bike might have was rapidly being lost because of my pot-belly. Then it rained, cats & dogs. Luckily I was wearing my swimming trunks as underwear (that chafing problem), since below the waist, below my waterproof in other words, I was soaked to the skin. It only lasted half an hour then it was scorching so very humid with steam coming off the road.
The campsite at Mornay looked nice enough, I realised I'd cycled through there last year on the main road that thundered through the village, but the village didn't seem to have any shops, so I carried on another 8km to Le Veurdre.
A good decision, the campsite was a small municipal one, quiet and cheap. When I first arrived at the campsite there was no one there, so I did my usual thing of wandering around with my compass trying to figure out which pitch would be best given I prefer: not under trees since if it rains under a tree rains twice, trees or other shade to the west so it's cool in the afternoon, clear view to the east so the rising sun can wake me up. You rarely find that of course but that doesn't stop me from looking.
So, tent up, washing done and hanging to dry. In fact if you click this photo you'll see the view through those trees, from the fence where I'd hung my washing. Then the guardienne arrived and watched my things (and the powermonkey on charge) while I nipped into the village to buy fruit and rice pudding for supper.
Once set up I sat and read for while: 37° le Matin, my french novel to help me resurrect the french learned 45 years previously. I was reading to the sound of rustling leaves with the hot sun coming through to my shady seat, hot but with a breeze. Perfect.
There was an orange weather warning and it pee'd it down with rain later that evening and I thought, because of that, that the group of youngsters that the guardienne had said would arrive later weren't coming. No such luck, they arrived at 10.30pm and were noisy enough to make me wonder about getting out from my nice warm sleeping bag to complain. In the end I just put in my earplugs and went back to sleep.