St.Malo

It was Saturday the 13^th of November 1981; we were on our way to Beaune. Leaving St.Malo on the D21 we decided to have breakfast at Dol de Bretagne. This was a typical, cosy, petite French town. A market square bordered with cafés, adjacent to the Church, close to the town hall, the centre boasting a public pissoire. It was now about 8.30am so it was time for some real nourishment. One of the bars offered breakfast, so we dragged ourselves inside, gratefully collapsing against the nearest table; by now the overindulgence from the night before was resurfacing. The boys were looking forward to the usual hangover cure of bacon and eggs with a large pot of tea; this was not going to happen. The patron produced croissants, bread, jam and coffee, there were puzzled expressions, obvious disappointed. They collectively suspected that this was not going to be such a good trip after all. Their faces lit up when at the next table two French farmers were enjoying coffee accompanied by quite a large hit of brandy. They began to understand the country a little more. We moved on, after coffees and brandy, along the D794 to Vitre then later to Laval. By lunchtime we had reached Vaiges, where we stopped for lunch. Good news, the menu of the day was steak and chips. We’ll have five please. Geoff pointed out to me that it was in fact cheval, but we both decided not to inform the group until later. The news was greeted with, “oh… bollocks I’ve just eaten ‘Trigger’, jointly followed by ‘he wasn’t half bad though”: we were bonding as a group.

Jack, as well as being a car salesman was also a part time musician. He played the drums, very badly, at the Monday jazz night at the Crow. The band would vary in size from a six piece to as many as ten, they would play for free but my side of the bargain was to keep them in ale throughout the night. What a bummer, I took less money at the bar than I gave away; this was probably one of the reasons why I never made a profit at the Crow, the other one being that I was regarded by many of the customers as a right miserable bastard. Jack had brought his second instrument, the squeeze box, why? I don’t know, but later it proved to be a life saver. After leaving the Routier, preceded by a few choice melodies from the instrument in the direction of a local but very baffled wedding party, we drove through Le Mans on the N157 down to St. Calais. By early evening we had arrived, via the D9, at our first overnight stop at Amboise on the Loire.