events

8.51am Not the goose for breakfast I hasten to add. I came across this farmstead, goose running free and various men trying to move a tractor; with difficulty. It was like stepping back 100 years.

9.00am The men eventually swapped driver and got the tractor moving. One of them went inside with me and helped organise food with the large bearded woman who was peeling potatoes in a huge room in which whatever wasn't hanging from the ceiling was being chopped up on the table.She seemed reluctant to make hot food and in the end I settled on bread, cheese and some sausisson. Oh, and a glass of wine.Later the man brought me out a large piece of apple pie too. The sausisson had the strangest taste and the two cheeses might have had the power of self-locomotion, but I ate them before full scientific testing could begin.The post-woman, who pulled up to deliver letters, looked at me strangely and said: are you eating? Is it alright?When I came to pay the man had gone and the bearded lady asked for 11 euros, I, shocked, said surely there was some mistake and 3 euro would be fairer, in the end we settled on 3.5 euros. I must say that's the first time I've ever haggled over the cost of breakfast.

9.27am Suitably replenished after my challenging repast I resume the battle with the hills.

9.44am By now I'm almost at the end of the climbing and start the descent, through dramatic country'side, down to Ambert, by way of Job.