Day 18: Not Quite Sezanne to Not Quite Vitry Le Francois. Bubbles

Oh the beautiful woods le grande bois. So grande is the bois that I cant find my way out and get lost for about an hour and a half. I have to leave the bike and proceed on foot to scope an exit, counting my footsteps so as not to lose the bike as well. I'm so close to the road but a hedge of ferns and small trees blocks my way. Wearing shorts and sandals my legs and feet are torn to ribbons trying to penetrate the brambles and if that is not enough for a gonzo historian to bear/bare ??? I have champignons wedged between my toes. I find an exit to the road that would be a lot easier if had a machete and break through, pushing the ferns to one side as if I was a startled deer determined to get on the road from the safety of the forest and try to headbut a car headlight in the still of night. But it is day and I can see and I am not a deer. I heave the bike with all my might onto the road bleeding from leg and mushrooming from toe and startle a lorry driver coming towards me. 10km later I am in Sezanne where Thomas stayed at the Hotel de France. I seek out the venue not knowing if it still exists and come across the le sandy car de niche e a tive. Here a friendly young Frenchman by the name of Ryan gives me all kinds of interesting facts and helps me with some translation as well as fetching out some back copies of previous maps that might have had some old photos of Sezanne when Stevens would have arrived. Unfortunately my experience at the Hotel de France is not as good and after explaining my quest the receptionist just smiles and tries to book me a room. According to my friend in the T.I. The Hotel de France was the only reason people had heard of Sezanne and was famous across all France. Not surprisingly this is no longer true today. (sips Champagne from a plastic cup). Ryan advises me of where I can purchase some champagne and off I go. This may seem like an extravagance but there is only one Champagne region in the world and if Thomas mentions the vineyards then it would be rude not try the harvest from their fruit. After visiting the Champagne House Dugnay I hand over my 8 euros and one half bottle of Dugnay is handed over. I find a shady tree lined walkway with a lovely view and tuck into the regional speciality poured into a plastic cup. I accompany this with some stale bread, runny Camembert and five day old chorizo. From the sweet trolley I order broken biscuits and the natural yin and yang of things is restored. The perfect opportunity to get get out Le Portable and do a bit of tippy tapping and drink the coolish champagne before it gets warm and let the sun cool down before Je suis sur les traces de l'historie de la premiere personne qui a fait le tour du monde en velo. As the bubble buzz kicks in I head on towards the next spot. I end up on an N road and have to use the small hard shoulder. As lorries pass close by at speed I wobble then get sucked along in their slipstream for a bit. Quite exhilirating I must say. This continues for about 15km before I pull into a Total Petrol Station and ask to fill my water bottles up. The woman behind the counter refuses. I double check and still no. I search for a tap in the toilets and they are warm only. I slink off thirsty and pissed off. Another 10k of N road delights and I stop at a roadside cafe and ask for water again. Not only does the woman here have a smile for me but instead of using the tap she gets three caraffes of cold water from the fridge, what a darling. I peel off here and take the back roads and after drifting and undulating between the horizonless crop fields I spot some woods down a farm track. Off I sneak with an hour to go before sunset and find a little place in the trees. People have been before and they have cleared a spot for me. A Dilemma. 3/4s of a jar of pesto and a tiny bit of pasta left. Jar is glass, heavy and going off. Rather than waste it I take the calories, lighten my load and have the heaviest pesto pasta ratio ever.
As I recover in the tent the sun has gone down and I can here squealing outside. I put it down to some sort of owl and put my sweaty body into my sweaty sleeping bag. It's getting hotter I'm sure.
Any typo's and grammatical errors will probably be altered by my proof reader as I'm far too hot to care. If it makes no sense come back in a few days:)