The French Winter

I had got into the habit of an annual winter Ironman training trip to Lanzarote, but to be honest, I was getting a bit bored of it. I had ridden the entire island by now.

It had been a while since I had been to the Herault. The south of France, Montpellier region, was supposed to be cold, but crisp and sunny even in January and it had to be better than training in my garage and the grim local swimming pool, while the rain lashed down outside.

I looked up Montpellier, which was only an hour or so south of a caving region I knew extremely well. There was excellent cycling in cave country and a 50m Olympic swimming pool in town. Plus, my caving friend Jean Tarrit lived there. My boss from my Boskalis days, Craig Frederick, also lived up the road in Nîmes and another friend Miles Barrington, live a few hours away in Béziers.

It looked like a good opportunity to experience France in winter, seeing as I want to live there one day, and stay in a city to experience proper French life, rather than the rose-tinted caving and camping holidays I was used to.

I obsessed over the pool in the weeks approaching January and tried to plan as best I could, to reduce my anxiety and imposter syndrome about going into a competition pool. I need not have worried.

I got on the Chunnel and made good time, stopping in a well-lit service station on the way down which had hot showers, a washing machine and good coffee and croissants for breakfast. There was snow on the ground, but my van is super cosy and I got on the road the next day to finish the journey to my Air BnB in Montpellier.

I had picked an apartment within easy cycling distance to the pool and brought my ancient flat-pedalled ‘trek’ bike for commuting, leaving the expensive Orro in the flat for proper rides.

This plan worked out well and my anxiety ridden commute to the pool was squashed by super friendly staff, who let me practise my well-versed French on them before responding in perfect English!

Despite my imposter syndrome, I got my act together and approached the pool lanes. Unlike the UK, there was no ‘Fast, Medium, Slow’ lanes. Instead, it was everyone for themselves, all mixed together!

This was problematic, but not in the way I expected.

As I surveyed each lane, nobody seems to be moving very quickly. There was an old lady ambling along doing a slow-motion back stroke. Some large guy was struggling to stay afloat doing the front half of a breastroke.

A few folk who could swim had developed a well-timed tumble turn to undercut the slower swimmers at the end of the pool and simply swam out from underneath them!

This was chaos! Whatever I did, nobody would look nor care!

I got in, turned on my Shokz, began swimming and all my nonsense went away. Mission accomplished, I got changed, used the lovey hairdryers on offer and went out to get on my bike. As I set off away from the pool I crossed some tramlines and stupidly didn’t take them at 90 degrees. One wheel fitted perfectly down the tramline and my bike bucked me off. Uninjured but acutely embarrassed, I picked up my bike before I got run over by a tram…and mounted again some distance away.

The apartment was perfect and was just above a Lidl (which are significantly more impressive than English ones) and I was able to load up with nice food, including my favourite ‘canard’ and decent wines for around 4 euros a bottle. Just a mile or so away was a Super-U which is definitely one of my favourite French supermarkets and I stocked up here too. Unsure about what facilities would be in the Air BnB, I took my own air fryer and this was a godsend.

One of my plans was to visit the stunning beach of Sète. The next day promised sunshine so I planned a bike ride along the sea front which had a wide, flat bike path. Being out of season, it wasn’t crowded and I saw only runners, local dog walkers and other cyclists.

I got down on my tri bars and did some efforts but I soon ended up dossing about staring at the sparkling sea and vast sandy beach.

To end the day I went on a 6km run and finished up feeling jealous of the vibe in the beach bar that had suddenly opened where people lay back in coats and sunglasses with cold pints, watching the world go by.

I was pouring with sweat and stank so got in my car and drove back for a hot bath and some magret de canard a la airfryer.

More swimming ensued as I dodged increasing rain showers, some of which were biblical in style. I took a day off to go and visit the Fredericks in Nimes, my old boss and his wife. Craig is best known for being the dive supervisor who had the traumatic task of trying to get his diver, Chris lemons, back off the seabed in 2012 when the dive vessel Topaz lost her entire dynamic positioning system, leaving Chris stranded with a snapped umbilical and only minutes of gas, no heating, no lights and no comms – and no bell!

Craig featured in the ‘proper’ documentary version of ‘Last Breath’ which can be watched on Apple TV and sometimes streams on Netflix.

The Hollywood version is best avoided.

He and his wife are excellent company and I got fed scallops and champagne – they really know my style! It’s their fault I bought an airfryer….

I went for a lovely walk in Nîmes to visit the Fontaine de Nîmes, a cave dive that still eludes me as only the Pompier can access it.

Then of course, a visit to the most incredible food market. Some of the ‘produce’ wouldn’t have looked out of place on ‘I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here’.

Then I headed back to Montpellier and the Herault gorge for more cycling and swimming. I did what would normally have been a superb 74km circuit, taking in the stunning Cirque de Navacelles. It seems I had picked the most vile day to do it and I got heavily rained on for about 3 hours. I was super proud of climbing out of the valley all the way but the conditions were utterly foul.

Drenched and nearly hypothermic I drove back to Montpellier and decided a day off was in order.

I went to visit Miles.

Now, I had not seen Miles since I was about 14 years old. Miles was in my mother’s scuba diving club and he took me on my first scuba dive when I was somewhere around that age. I didn’t know then that he was a member of the Cave Diving Group – but it didn’t matter because, back then, I also had no idea I would become a cave diver too!

It is indeed a small and incongruous world.

Miles and I had been chatting on Facebook for years, as he lived in the south of France and we had mutual friends such as Andy and Rachel Sparrow.

Miles also lived very close to St Chinian of vineyard fame – I say fame, my CDG mentor Clive Westlake has a particular liking for the stuff.

A friend of his had invited us over for supper at his house so we went along and had the most wonderful evening, making new friends and practising my French as we went.

It didn’t stop raining so a vineyard tour was out of the question, but we did visit the St Chinian shop where I had the opportunity to stock up.

Not done with my friend ‘rounds’ I was long overdue catching up with my old friend, Jean Tarrit. He lives in Montpellier and I asked him to show me around the region so I could get a better feel for it. Especially as the ongoing monsoon had completely blown out all options of caving.

I asked Jean to show me around Montpellier, but first he was insistent on taking me out for lunch at Pavalas-Les-Flottes. He offered to come and pick me up but when I gave him my address, it turns out that, by pure chance, I'd rented an apartment just 200 metres from his home! It was also very close to the restaurant that he had previously owned, the restaurant Rembaud, which had a star or two. So many of my friends are dark horses!

He took me to a wonderful restaurant in Pavalas-Les-Flottes overlooking the marina and we went for a walk afterwards around the Cathedral the Mageulone. The whole area was stunning and surrounded by the most beautiful pink flamingos.

A few days later I went for a long run, some 15 kilometers or so, around the salt pans. A lot of the running routes were flooded so I got very wet feet and somehow ended up on a very long and sandy windswept beach, finishing up surrounded by flamingos.

Later on, Jean showed me around Montpellier and took me to all the historical sites as he really does love his history. The city wasn't too busy but it was well connected by trams and buses and bicycle routes with plenty of cafes and restaurants on offer. I really liked the vibe and it's such a convenient place with the caves only one hour in one direction and the beach just half an hour in the other. I can definitely see myself living in this area sometime in the future.

Unfortunately the weather never looked like improving so instead of extending my stay, I took the difficult decision to head on home. This was mostly because my cycling and running was becoming limited due to the monsoon conditions. I loved France just as much as ever and it definitely gave me a lot to think about in terms of where I would ultimately like to end up