Day 10/10: we end with a bang! Taking two light days was the right decision. Temps were back in the manageable range, and compounded by my form being back above -30 and a healthy tail wind👌

Day 09/10: another short one to avoid heat exhaustion.

Day 08/10: short one to a train because I wasn't going to ride 100km in another 35 Celsius forecast, but still wanted to cross the Belgian border on the bike - or the ferry to be more precise

Day 07/10: riding in 36 Celsius at 16:00, berk.

Day 06/10: my body was asking for a nap half an hour into breakfast but I really wanted to do the full planned distance & particularly to cross the Rhine on the bike. Featuring 1km of backtracking to recover my drying shorts from the floor, and yet another German incursion #ProudEUCitizen

Day 05/10: another Germany incursion; also featuring a long road surrounded by forest, in the middle of which I joyfully proceeded to remember that someone had told me that there are wolves in East NL forests, who came from DE.

Day 04/10: an incursion in Germany was made, and the rain finally arrived while there!

Day 03/10 add-on: Instead I enjoyed the great integration of cycling in the train network; absolutely seamless to pivot and buy a last-minute ticket to put your bike on two trains 🤩

Day 03/10: I am lobster and I ended just going to Heerenveen to catch a train to Leeuwarden and a connection to Groningen. I mean, I already had to spend 3km without any shade just in the 14km there. The cycling infrastructure is amazing, but those cycleways ain't built for climate change!

Day 02/10 note 3: customary bike-on-canal-bridge Nederland picture, curtesy of my bum screaming for a break from the saddle. I love that baby more than my expensive road bike 😍

Day 02/10 note 2: I took a dip in the IJsselmere 🤩

Day 02/10: I changed my route to stop East of the Friesland because it peaked at 34 Celsius on the damn and today is meant to be the same. Didn't make yesterday any shorter (the GPS and GMaps terrible idea after the pit stop at the end of the dam certainly didn't help), but will make today so.

Day 01/10: elapsed time is terribly longer than cycling time because idiot me did not really prepare well and my GPS set-up wasn't ideal, leading to many more stops than necessary, including a serendipitous stop by the North Sea.

Second end-to-end cycling tour started Sunday with a ferry to Hoek van Holland: first self-supported one, although credit-card touring style because I think camping is bleurgh; anyway who doesn't want the additional pressure to have to reach their hotel destination before check-in closes?

That's OK to just put that picture as my out of office, with a link to Not my problem (Noga Erez; open.qobuz.com/track/331435...), right?

Montpellier did take my breath away though: this hidden away monumental cathedral reminded of how Toulouse hides its Jacobins' gem (fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couvent...) and I absolutely teared up at how the whole old town reminded me somehow of Toulouse and how much I missed the latter #BurnoutEmotions

San Sebastián kayaking exceeded everything though, and it has been a little difficult to get excited by Madrid #SpoiledEuropeanChild

Of course, I rate French supermarkets hunts even higher.

Rowing mate: "Send photos from the food [in San Sebastián]!! I understand that it’s incredible! 😋" Me, a French neurodivergent person who rates Spanish supermarkets like a kid rates toy stores.

I accidentally used Google as a search engine. LOL at anyone who thinks that AI is getting there when it can't get such a simple query right.

The very moment I realised I decided taking my husband to hike to a long barrow the day after he turned 60 was a good idea 😁

When you pop to the shop unplanned and don't have a bag. That definitely beats the times I used the bottle holder for my travel mug.

On Saturday, we hit more touristy spots I would never approach on my own, although that means I finally saw where my actual president currently lives. It's never too late I guess.

So we spent Friday working in the hotel, but reviewing a manuscript is at least 5x better with a baguette and rillettes and goat cheese to spread over it. Then we hit major points in central Paris that The Fantastic Tattooed Man asked to see (I thought we had seen those together before but 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Totally hinged French family convo. NB: tagadas are strawberry-shaped and flavoured Haribo sweets one cannot find routinely in the UK and which therefore I brought back from Paris for her.

Then Sunday, The Fantastic Tattooed Man had what may have been his first proper éclair, and this lucky man stumbled in a bakery that fills them with mousse rather than cream. This lucky wife got to eat half of it though, so all is fine (yes, I am a brat).

Round #5: I forced fate and took us to Lille to see Lamomali, a Franco-Malian collective tonight (15/11) at the Zénith). So excuse us the culinary side note.

Marmottan Monet had an exhibition on sleep ("Sommeil") which is full of little gems from less known and more famous artists, and where the curator made debatable labelling choices too. I could spend ages writing alt-text to share it all, so I'll just focus on a lesser known artist, Fernand Pelez.