there is no roseability – Lorikeets, Monaco to Brignoles

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Lorikeets, Monaco to Brignoles

// 6th July

There’s a lot of lorikeets around my area. Some guy on my street feeds them all the time. Joshua is house-sitting for a friend in the next suburb and has to put out food for the lorikeets every morning.

So I’m driving along, cruising down my street with my window open as I am prone to do on a warm sunny day, and bam, suddenly there’s a lorikeet on my back seat. The thing was flying perpendicular to my line, and somehow I ‘caught’ it in my open window. It came in between my head and the side of the car. I didn’t even have time to flinch. At first I thought it just flew into my side window, but then I heard it hit the back seat. I was almost home, so I kept driving, figuring I’d let it out when I stopped. I opened the door and said, “End of the line, buddy”, but he didn’t want to leave. After flapping around for a minute or two (me, that is) I got it out. Uh, germs everywhere. I’m going to have to fumigate my car.

Then Joshua told me a story of a lizard that came inside with the newspaper. He put him outside on the balcony, thinking it’d look after itself and climb down the wall. But no, it was all too much for this lizard, and he flung himself from the second storey…

The Tour went from Monaco to Brignoles last night. A pretty good watch after the fairly boring individual time trial that was the first stage. Hugs came around, and almost immediately needed Maccas. Joshua directed him to one about three suburbs away for some reason, and despite almost vomiting at the sight of fast-fat and blue-frozen-bubblegum-Coke or whatever it was, it was an entertaining ride due to Hugs’ driving skills. We finally settled on the couch – at least Hugs and I did, Joshua and Megan never quite got it – for the stage. There was a whole lot of amateur discussion of various aspects of the race between Hugs and myself, and a whole lot of very amateur pronunciation of French words from all of us. Hugs called Cavendish for the win early on. Columbia-htc set him up brilliantly, with not one but two team mates slinging him to the finish over the last few hundred metres. Close to the end of the race a rider (I’m gonna call it as one of the crazy Spaniards, but I could be wrong) stacked on a corner, and in the confusion seven or so riders who were at the leading end of the peloton went off the course. Columbia-htc’s George Hincapie, Mark Renshaw, and Mark Cavendish pounced on the opportunity, surging to the head. Hincapie spent himself dragging his team along for a couple of hundred metres before jettisoning. Renshaw then put in the big ones to sling Cavendish towards the line. Cavendish had no problem finishing it off, being the best sprinter in the world so the kids reckon. It was classically set up, and was brilliant to watch.

Other than a breakaway that was always going to get caught, and a minor pile up, not much exciting happened in the main parts of the race. We spent most of it trying to sort out which jerseys belonged to which teams (still got a bit of work to go there), and admiring some particularly scenic… scenery, and arguing about whether you can compare the sights of Europe to the sights of Australia, and comparing the richness of Western culture in various parts of the world. While I can see that Australia is a cultural black hole compared to some places, I still say Europe isn’t that great on the whole. I’m still up for moving to one of those French towns though…

Cancellara still has the Yellow Jersey after his stage 1 win. Evans is fifth overall. Marseille to La Grande-Motte to-night.

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