The tour de farce

The first lot of grandchildren left today and I've 3 days till the second and much bigger bunch arrive.
We did have the tour pass through our village on the day it was dubbed the tour de farce, because of all the drug taking. Double farce for me; I had planned a TV appearance, the juxtaposition of the road and my garden would be exactly right to be face on to the helicopter camera ! I had both my not very legal UK TV system and the French one set to record and as the eye in the sky followed the main bunch towards me I stepped forward, with a cherry wave, at that instant the bloody machine veared off down into the valley to join the leading group ! Foiled!
The racers always work this very transparent ruse, for the first part of the days stage a few (but never a rider who might stand a chance of gaining the lead) are allowed to build up a substantial lead. During the latter part of the stage the pellaton (main bunch) push to catch up, creating considerable tension and excited full pitch commentary and coincidently all finish together !
They are probably a bit more blassée in the big towns but out here it is made into quite an event, a buvette (portable bar) was set up outside the town hall and a B-B-Q organised in a nearby field and of course the roads are closed hours beforehand.
I was quite surprised, on taking the dog for it's morning walk, to see at least 4 camper vans parked on the green across the road, the greenis no bigger than an average municipal bowling green. Given that the riders pass a given spot at 40 kph (drug assisted!), they are through in seconds, so these happy campers spend their 3 weeks hols