So I'm having a day off in Amboise, a small town with a big castle like so many others along the Loire. All of a sudden the streets are full of Americans and the cycle paths and country lanes busy with Dutchmen and Australians, whereas until Tours I hadn't seen a foreigner on the road at all. I have managed to find a way of writing a new post on my iPhone, which has a very small keypad but at least it's an English one (qwerty). Since the last successful one a lot of things have happened, and a lot of miles covered. The weather has changed again now after about a week of abnormally hot days which tested the metabolism - it was only 3 weeks ago that it was snowing on the way to the airport at Manchester and now I've been walking in temperatures of 26 degrees! I have passed through an extraordinary landscape of grottoes and caves hewn out of the soft tufa, many of which have houses attached or are used for storing wine and cheeses or growing mushrooms. Or even in one case snails. I came across a vigorous 77-year-old who offered me a drink in his house, which he had literally carved out of the rock and added windows and a door. Up a steep flight of steps above the house he had put up a little wooden house on a flat space with a patio, and he told me I could sleep there. The view from the front door early the next day was fantastic, looking down onto the river. I spent one whole day walking through the forest of Chinon, during which I met nobody else walking or cycling and only saw 3 people to say hello to but on the whole there have been plenty of locals out and about. I saw a man yesterday collecting nettles which he said were for mulching his tomato plants to heat them up, and a boy fishing for frogs in a small village pond. On Easter Sunday I found myself at a museum of Lenin memorabilia, which was most bizarre and could easily form the basis of a forthcoming book. Meanwhile there have been birds aplenty: this is a twitchers' paradise as there are so many migratory birds. They love the sandbanks and small islands, even inn the middle of big towns like Tours. I hope to continue on towards Orleans in the next week so am going faster than expected.