Cooling and climbing

Baby travel tale number five, Tuesday: in thirty-five degree heat, la grand-mère, la mère et la fille set off in la voiture with broken air-conditioning to visit a friend and her baby. Short ten minute journey fortunately, and la petite behaves perfectly during the trip there, the visit, and falls asleep in the car on the way back! Hallelujah.

Next day le père takes the car to the garage to get the air-conditioning fixed. Diagnosis: leaking compressor. Cost of repair: 900 euros for a new replacement, or 560 for a repaired one. Plus labour costs. Hmm, trusty (air-con apart) old banger is barely worth that much. Internet search reveals second hand compressors are available for about 100 euros. Wonder if the (franchised) garage will put it in? Quatorze juillet yesterday and bridging day today, garage closed. Have to wait till next week to find out…

There was the usual fireworks show above Fourvière yesterday to celebrate la fête nationale, an event dampened by the deaths of five French soldiers in Afghanistan but not by the torrential rain, which came and went the previous day. La belle-mère et le beau-fils toddled to the end of the road late last night to watch, while la bienheureuse looked after last feed of the day for la petite coquinette. The latter has learned a new trick recently - blowing raspberries. Which she does frequently and with great gusto. Significance? No idea. Any baby behaviour experts out there, answers on a postcard please.

Bastille day also produced minor fireworks yesterday, during the start of the real Tour de France, the first mountain stage. As expected, French cyclists made valiant attempts to win the stage, accompanied by a worthy Welsh gooner, but in the end the favourites all finished more or less together. Main talking point though was the fact that the others gained a few more seconds on Contador. Never seen before.

Up until yesterday the Tour was characterised by the number of falls. Contador alone has tumbled four times. Seems it really isn't his year, but the most spectacular day of chutes was on Sunday, when several riders were severely injured in one major crash, and a car belonging to France Televisions knocked two of the leading group into a barbed wire fence. Both bravely got back on their bikes and finished the stage, but the incident made lots of noise in France. The car driver was excluded from the tour, and there is talk about requiring all drivers and motorbike riders to be former professional cyclists. Most already are, though not the culprit on Sunday.