My ferry journey to France was uneventful, other than me spilling my whole bottle of olive oil on the floor of the shuttle bus to the ferry. I exited rapidly but it glugged all over my sandals which hasn’t helped my blister situation.

As soon as the decks opened in the morning I went from car to car pleading for a lift. Everyone said no, but I got lots of smiles and encouragement.

I wasn’t giving up that easily. As the cars were released from customs I flashed my sign again. With all but a few vehicles remaining I was losing hope, but then a white van from Plume logistics pulled up.

The driver, Marc, was from Salford but lived near Cahors, and we drove south for about 4 hours to Farges-Allichamps, the temperature increasing as we travelled. Funnily enough , last weekend both myself and one of Marc’s daughters were at the same music festival in Somerset! Marc treated me to a baguette and dropped me at a service station. Thanks Marc!

It was only 1/2 hour before Jean Marc and Peter rescued me from the baking heat and took me another 45 minutes south to a toll station outside Montmarault. Thanks guys, I enjoyed meeting you.

It’s a major road, the A72, but not many cars pass through. I got no bites but it was very enjoyable to anticipate the reaction, be it completely ignoring me, an apologetic smile and shrug, or the quick shake of the head and wag of the finger. Guessing the driver’s reaction off the car model is my new game.

I gave up at 8pm and explored the small town. It’s good to be back in France. I felt like people on the street must’ve driven past me and were saying ‘look it’s that weirdo that’s been standing by the toll all day’.

Montmarault is a pretty industrial place, and that included the establishment where I ate dinner. It was the number one choice of the lorry driving fraternity and judging by the size of the blokes waddling out, it was catering for them fantastically. I really capitalised on the buffet bar, aiming for a calorie surplus to keep me ticking over for the next three days and the steak frite took me to that quota nicely.

I bedded down on the edge of a cornfield ready for more of the same in the morning.

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Diabetes

Day 1: Stable but slightly elevated levels. Happy to run a bit high as I don’t know how much basal insulin to inject since I could be walking a lot or not much. Considering I didn’t eat much apart from some nuts, insulin requirements were high, probably because I haven’t exercised in a few days.

Day 2: Had a major spike to 20 after sandwhich. Interesting how glycemic excursions are larger for a given carbohydrate amount after fasting/low carb. I had no idea what ratio to use to correct this high. This sent me low (2.3). Ate some dextrose and then had a false 5.5 blood test (dextrose on my fingers and no water to wash them). Thinking I was 5.5 I ate some peanut butter. This lines the stomach and makes sugar digestion slower, so when I realised I was still low and ate more dextrose, it was slow to raise sugars and I ended up going high again.