Alain, my warmshowers.com visitor was very good company; within a few minutes of meeting him at the station I felt that I had known him for a long time. After the football (see previous post) and a follow-up post-match discussion over another beer, we retired to the flat and chatted about cycling and travels. Alain describes himself as a traveller who happens to use a bike; I like that!

He has spent much of his life on this side of the channel, his wife is English and his two children both sound more British than French! This made life much easier as we could chat away in English rather than French. Despite being a French teacher, it can be an effort to have long discussions in a foreign language when you are only used to having discussions about pets and houses with 11-year-old children.

Alain has really bolstered my opinion of warmshowers.com . He has used the site regularly and was even able to supply me with the names of some people in Kent who I may well contact as an alternative to camping. I’ll also hopefully be seeing him again when I arrive in France. He has kindly offered to meet me from the ferry and cycle down with me to his house, east of Boulogne-sur-mer where I will stay overnight before heading off to Lille. He was also very keen to join me as I cycled eastward which would be fantastic! He pointed out that there is the ferry that goes from Dover to Boulogne and that it might be an idea for me to do that crossing rather than Dover-Calais. I’ll certainly look into the possibility as it would make eminent sense to arrive in Boulogne, spend the night at Alain’s house and then just continue east towards the Belgian border…

I’m typing this at 9pm on Monday evening; the photo was taken this morning at around 6.30am. It seems such a long time ago! He cycled off down to Kent to meet up with his son and his family. I cycled off to work and another day at the interactive whiteboard face…