The Maiden Voyage of Ramalama and Shakalaka

There two young bicycles, Ramala and Shakalaka, identical twins they are.

In order to tell them apart one needs a Ding Dong, the other a Boom boom. 

Itching and twitching to seek out adventure and wild roguery, to discover their true identities they gathered their necessities for the road and left propelled by their peanut powered riders (that's us that is).

For days through soggy wet sand they cycled. The wind and the rain in their faces, the sand in their bearings and rainbows to greet them at the end of each day.

They arrived in Rennes at La Petite Rennes where Ramalama found a Ding Dong and Shakalaka picked up a rear view mirror.

Oh the joy! We are begining to tell them apart! 

 

It rained and it rained and it rained. The wind blew and it blew and it blew in their faces. All the way from Rennes to Belin Beliet and all the other places.

Soggy wet picnics and flasks of hot tea kept us going! 

Gilbert, the hero who escaped from the clutches of the thieves!

He is happy to be dry and on the road again, flitter fluttering in the wind, enjoying the views.

Aaah the open road! It leads... Where does it lead? He doesn't know yet.

 

Wherever they stopped, Rama and Lama, Shaka and Laka attracted the attention of cute little kitty cats!

Things are looking up! 

Two cats! Two punctures!? Is there a link? We can't find one. But it is certain that our twins will need a tyre upgrade before too long. 

The wind it was outrageous! The storm raged and the trees fell, scattered across our paths. Over and over again we took detours and carried Ramalama and Shakalaka over the debris and the trunks. 

 As always, here the random bicycle art. Some abandoned night club graffiti and an impressively stylish retro cyclo accessoires logo. 

 Hop hop, back on the road!

We are always looking out for signs of the elk society. Beuglons en coeur! Bellow with all your hearts!

Giants will walk the earth once again! 

The signs lead us on for 3 weeks and 3 days. A total of 1214km in 21 days of cycling, mostly in the rain, 3 days of sheltering from the storm and a couple of days rest to give our little bottoms some relief from breaking in saddles.

We have visited old friends, made many new friends and discovered new places to do our show come spring.

But for now we have arrived at our winter quarters. 

When they don't have chores to do like fetching water and going shopping, Ramalama and Shalkalaka are safely tucked away at the bottom of the stairs. 

Our legs have been stretched back into walking position, we have gathered our senses and Sylvia is in the directors chair ready for the remaking of Jonny Jeegante & The Bici Benshi. 

 

And where is Kevin you might ask!?

He is  in the dressing room, dreaming of the all singing and dancing Carmen Munchita Cabaret.

But more about that another time.

Lockdown No.3 we're nearly there

Another lockdown, this time we're camped in the woods. It's very peaceful and relaxing here. 

 

 

Where are we? We're in Fitou. There are lots of vineyards here and a ruin. 

 

 

 Kevin here in his best head honcho look. We've become builders.      

 

   

 Walls and steps and stones and dust and stones and cement.

Sylvia's skillfully slapping cement on slippery stones in the sweltering summer sun, 40°C.

 Look at the beautiful steps we've made. All done! Ready for the grand entrance.

Cowboy style cooking everything on the open fire we got better and better at it. Best Discovery vegetable parcels, sweet potato parcels, mushroom and garlic butter parcels, snake bread with wild asparagus and of course lots of sausages from our piggy friends up in the mountains, more on that below.

 

One day we went on a bike ride to the lost village and discovered that Ramon de Perellos walked from here to Lough Derg in Ireland 600 years ago, slow travel a l'ancienne.

 Before we left, we left a curse to protect the camp and the building site and the toads in the wall and the green tree frogs in the lemon tree. We left behind seven snotty orphans.

 

Just for a little break in the mountains we went to visit our friends the piggies and Django the beautiful horse. It was mighty cold and snowing up there.

Meet our new members of the team: Fred and Suki practicing with their new puppet booth.

En route northwards Kevin peels an egg and our customary bicycle image of this blog.

Sylvia hangs out on the Transbordeur with Les Demoiselles de Rochefort and somebody has found their antlers.

 

It gets greener and greener and greener the further north we go greener and greener it gets.

 

What did Donkey Shorter say? We couldn't leave Europe without a word of advice from our hero and one last quick tour around the telephone booth at the end of Europe.

 

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"

Don Quixote, Cervantes

 

 

 

We've made it back! We have officially arrived in Cornwall it's chirpy, cheerful and sunny. Just ten days of quarantine to do now and two more tests before we can brave some of our favorite extra steep hills cycling the West Country.

Latest Update - Las Laous

We have spent the last few months isolated up in the mountains 

looking after cows and pigs with the lovely Justin, Emily and Daniele of Las Laous.

Not a bad place for sitting out a global pandemic. We have been very lucky!

Sometimes, if we’re not in the clouds we get some beautiful views.

Very difficult cycling though! It is steep!

We have a little house to ourselves and are protected by the skull and scythes.

 

The cute little Galloway calves and the rest of the herd have gone into the communal grazing land, 

to spend the summer high up in the mountain.

The piggies are still with us, always hungry and mostly quite funny.

 

Sometimes we get to go to St.Girons market now that it’s open again, selling delicious slow cooked pork.

Happy pigs make for happy eating!

 

We haven’t been performing any shows , everything got cancelled.

We didn’t make it to the Ciemmona in Turin this year on account of cette funeste pandemie !

So we’re still not in Italy!

And le Festival du Roc Castel has been cancelled for this year. Boo Hoo ! it was their 10th anniversary !

We were really looking forward to going again this year, performing, playing, participating, having fun!

“Toutefois le programme de cette année est donc reporté en 2021.  Et il sera
augmenté de quelques éléments supplémentaires pour compenser le manque
occasionné ou simplement pour faire une belle fête et célébrer « le monde
d’après », pour employer un mot à la mode. En espérant que cette idée de
« monde d’après » ne se soit pas un feu de paille. Paraît-il que le
développement de la pratique de la bicyclette en sera amplifié et
constituera l’un des éléments de cet après. Souhaitons-le “

pour le CA de LVE et l'équipe du festival, Hubert Martin

https://festival-roc-castel.eu/.

However we are using our time well and are making great progress on our new show,

Jonny Jeegante and the Bici Benshi which could be ready to roll out by the end of the summer. 

 

We’ll be staying here at Las Laous until the end of August and then take to the road again towards the south east of France.

Life is slowly coming back to normal and at last we now have some dates to play our show at the local summer Marche Nocturne in Massat on the 23rd of July and the 13th of August!

We’ll continue to enjoy the views and will go up and over for a walk one day to swim in the Etang Bleu on the other side of the mountain!

 

Vive les Radis! Vive la Biere! Vive la Velorution!

And so we arrived in la Sarthe one hot summers day. First a beautiful forest, la Forêt de Bercé.
It was very hot indeed and the cool refreshing forest was the only place to be! Amongst our friends the trees!

 
 
Our friends in the village were also fun! The super, friendly, full of atmosphere cafe associatif
La Brass Vie de Jupilles hosted us. The heart of the village.
https://vlap.fr/labrassviedejupilles/
We stayed a while, visited La Maison Bleue, where Sammy was threshing rye. Just enough to last him through the winter. A bowl of delicious power food!
https://fr-fr.facebook.com/maisonbleue72/



And there in the woods we met a puppeteer, who sculpts the marionettes for his Le Petit Théâtre des Mains from the bois de Bercé.

BUT NOT THIS ONE! This one was made by the wild children...





C'est par là ! This way to Teloche! We have been invited, to play our show, let's go!
Spontaneous gig No.1 at La Pince a Velo, Sarthes first and only Cafe Velo! With Olivier, a real cyclist super lovely man who cleaned our filthy bikes, gave us new chains and set us free to continue our périple.
https://lapinceavelo.eatbu.com/?lang=fr
This must have been the sweatiest gig of the year! We thought nobody would turn up because of the heat... but they did! And it was absolutely brilliant!

 


Finally sensible signage, made by cyclists for cyclists! Hurray!




An unexpected interlude at our friends farm Radis&Co.
http://radis.et.compagnie.free.fr/



We arrived to stay the weekend and do our show at the local super mini market of Montflours organised by Anim’Montflours. Because of torrential rain we played the official opening of the Archipel, the new home of the Brasserie Associative de Montflours - BAM.
http://biero.free.fr/brass.php?n=7
This must have easily been the wettest gig of the year.
But we was under the Archipel and everybody came running towards us in the rain.
Well well, because of a grande appendicite we ended up staying a month. And how lucky we was to be struck by a stroke of luck here amongst wonderful people who were all going on holiday and let us use their luxury pads to get Kevins digestive system back in order.
Ready for the next show! Ready for Le Bruit qui Court, a super, mini, friendly festival back at the farm.
Vive les Radis! Vive la BAM! Vive Montflours!



Whoa! bicycle bunting!

And then, a month late, but actually just in time for the end of the holidays, we arrived in the legendary village of Langouët, Commune écologique bretonne, where the mayor is fighting for less pesticides and is inspiring the nation!
We had a great time with the lovely people of the Cafe La Cambuse and were very glad we had finally made it! https://www.assolacambuse.org/ 

And there comes another invitation. A volunteer from the council at St.Sulpice La Forest is asking us to come and play at the Forum des Associations. Voila! On y va! Spontaneous gig No 2. 
Thank you to the kind person from the Epicerie- Taverne- Agriculturelle Le Guibra who forwarded our contact! https://leguibra.fr/  

After another little bike ride and a pique-nique....

 

....we just about make it up the Col du Plessis - Altitude 1000cm




... and onwards to Valanjou. A broken seat post later we get ferried of - in a van! to play at L'Asso 7, under a tree in a little room. What an adventure, taking a lift in a van the day before World Car Free Day! Tut tut tut!
https://fr-fr.facebook.com/pages/category/Community/Lasso-7-Valanjou-680806482059831/

Next stop Redon!

 


To meet up with new and old friends. New friends from Un Velo pour l'Afrique, https://fr-fr.facebook.com/un.velo.pour.l.Afrique, a fabulous workshop that sits on the edge of an industrial wasteland that has been managed by a community group called Le Transformateur, for ten years or more and is slowly being transformed by allowing nature to regenerate itself , creating a post industrial jungle garden. Yes! Lush!
http://le-transformateur.fr/

New friends from the wonderful world of warmshowers, Coralie and Laurent who hosted us in Redon and inspired us with their playful art of mobiles, flip books and early cinema.
https://www.colorant14.net/ 

And we got a letter! A real, papery letter with words written in it! Delivered by our old friend Vincent, Le Facteur Humain https://lemessagerduclepscycle.blogspot.com/p/chroniques-du-clepscycle_44.html
Our first letter in 6 years on the road. We're chuffed! Plus it's an invitation to the 10th anniversary of our favorite festival Le Festival du Roc Castel, Eloge du Voyage Lent! https://festival-roc-castel.eu/
We will be there!

We stayed with our friends Mimi et Fabien in St. Hilaire de Chaleons. Made some puppets with them. Please meet Belle Pou and Elk.
Verything-Love-Incorporation
and
La Compagnie de la Mitaine

A superbly lit theatre dans le jardin which led to our spontaneous gig No 3 the very next day at the very wonderful, newly opened

 Cafe Associatif
3 Francs 6 Sous in Le Pellerin.
https://www.3francs6sous.org/

And then southwards to Perigueux! It's mushroom season and the woods are brimming with mushroom hunters. We had no time for mushrooms as we had to cycle really fast to get to our rendez-vous with La Velorution Perigourdine and the Cafe Pluche in Comberanche et Epeluche.
https://velorution-perigourdine.fr/




Back and forth we went. Through the forest, over the hills, past the mushrooms to do two gigs in two days, rapidoo giddy bee.
https://lecafepluche.fr/




France 3 came to interview us! Oh lala!
Cafe Pluche et Spoke'n'Chain sur France 3

Onwards onwards to another set of beautifully enthusiastic people, to the valley of the Dordogne!

First off  in the heart of Sainte Foy la Grande a long standing community project, weaving and building peace and love in the Coeur de Bastide.
https://www.coeurdebastide.com/




Then to see our lovely friends Françoise and Dominique and play our show for them in a truly glorious venue, a right proper theatre setting. The garage of their friends Fabienne and Jean-Marie all part of a new Cafe Associatif and Castillon in Transition.
But what a garage it was!
https://www.facebook.com/castillonnaisentransition/



 
Les Amis!

  


A rare sight in France - a square that isn't a car park. A common sight in France - a closed down shop.

 


Cycle, cycle, cycle, cake, cake cake to our last show of the year with the sister of Jean-Marie in Lescar Pau. Theatre a la maison, around the fire place, a perfect way to finish off the year!

 



Before we spend the winter as russian, constructivist peasants.....