Le Tour

Today's stage of the Tour de France ended in Cap d'Agde, the resort which was my summer holiday destination for so many, many years. That was reason enough to follow the final hour of the broadcast, as the cyclists raced through scenery I knew so well. 

It was, I think, in 2006 that I last spent a few happy weeks at the beach. It coincided with my first posts to this blog, I recall. And it was my intention to finish the writing of Sex and Drugs and Profiteroles at exactly the place where the story ended. Yes, I had been working up to that fictional end-point for the whole previous year.

Previously I had regularly watched the Tour de France on the German state channel which later cancelled their carriage of the event in response to all the doping scandals. Now the broadcaster is Eurosport and today's sampling of their coverage left me disappointed. Not that they fail to re-transmit the signal of the French who cover the sporting action with their usual expertise. But there are no longer the touristic, historical and cultural side-bars which used to be so brilliantly added by the German team. It was these little bonus sections which meant that for me watching Le Tour was a chance to make further discoveries about the land that I will never explore as thoroughly as I would like to.

My, but six years have passed so quickly.