I awoke today for my first full day in Bédoin.

It’s a town I know well, having spent a few weeks here over the last three years and a fair chunk of time in the summers of my childhood. 

It’s good cycling territory, at least the kind of cycling I enjoy. Situated at the foot of the legendary and imposing Mt. Ventoux, Bédoin is a pleasant market town whose entire economy is now seemingly supported by impossibly skinny people (and that’s by my standards) who have come to test their mettle against one of cycling’s most historic climbs. But today’s forecast was for heavy rain and thunderstorms and if there’s one thing cycling in this part of France will teach you it is this, “don’t fuck about with the weather”. As I finished typing that last sentence thunder roared like some dying kaiju, the sky lit up, and rain of Jurassic Park proportions began again. Pathetic fallacy, nice.
The local Aedes mosquito population, seemingly armed with MG42s, have turned me into a pincushion over the last 24 hours or so. Not to be too “Men’s Roman Empire” about the situation but judging by my popularity with insects I would definitely be one of the Visigoths dead of malaria in the Pontine Marshes, rather than one sacking Rome. Catching sight of the mosquitos a little too late as they fly away, swollen with my blood, is the insult icing on the injury cake.
Despite the inclement weather and sanguinivorous insects it’s hard to be too dispirited here. The weather’s due to turn tomorrow and the hills and vineyards, orchards and gorges are calling my name— haze cleared by the rain, sweet smelling of gently sun warmed pine trees.