Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

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Pushing through the Bank Holiday crowds at Portsmouth Harbour, we climb gingerly onto our bikes for the last leg on home soil, pedalling past the defeated-looking Victory Shopping Centre on a classic British cycle lane that terminates abruptly in the middle of a junction. How I’ll miss these soon, I think nostalgically as an ancient Toyota Yaris lurches across my path without indicating.

I soon get my revenge as we sail past it at the ferry terminal, and straight into the usual lines of idling cars, the occupants sitting on the tarmac in their folding chairs, gawping at each new arrival like paparazzi at the world’s worst film premiere. We attract particular attention; I’d like to think it’s because we look so dashing, but they might well just be rubbernecking at my Lycra (Matt, meanwhile, is dressed like a normal person).

Having breezed through the ticket gates with the kind of cheer that a pair of rogue cyclists in a queue of cars often seem to be met with, my heart sinks as we approach the customs post. I have never managed to make it past one of these on two wheels without being pulled in for checking, less (I think) because of my shifty demeanour and more because it’s considerably quicker and easier to search a pushbike than a four-by-four with an Alsatian in the back. As the finger of suspicion inevitably beckons us over, I remember the trusty salami slicer stashed somewhere behind me – though it’s a modest blade of the sort you’ll find in the window of newsagents all over France, often along with child-sized versions labelled ‘my first knife’, I have a nasty feeling these chaps won’t appreciate how essential it is to a decent picnic.