Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

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Though his check-in opens in half an hour, and we’re still 15km away from the port, Matt confidently assures me as we unlock our sodden steeds that his ship doesn’t actually sail for hours, so until Google Maps sends us down the side of a farmer’s field with mud as deep as our pedals, we make a fairly leisurely pace west.

Fortunately, once we divert on to the main road my phone is so keen to avoid, it’s a fast run into Saint-Malo, although the town sprawls wider than I remember, and the ferry terminal sits bleakly, in the manner of such places, on a dual carriageway with nowhere for a farewell drink but a warehouse advertising cheap crates of beer to British booze cruisers. For the last time, I give thanks for my companion’s unerring nose for ‘just a quick one’, which leads us up the hill to the distinctly un-Gallic Cunningham’s Bar from where we can enjoy the sight of Matt’s boat patiently waiting for him as we raise a cider to my continuing adventures.

When the funnel begins to smoke, I reluctantly suggest we should probably make a move and insist on chaperoning him all the way to the ticket gates, more for my benefit than his. As he disappears cheerily through them on his way to that much-anticipated buffet, I feel cast adrift like a tiny oyster larvae floating free in the bay. Here I am, on my own, in a strange place, not knowing where I’m going to stay or eat tonight, and a whole month stretching terrifyingly ahead of me. Well, nearly alone. I still have that pied de cheval to keep me company.