Find Phileas
Chapter 16
Phileas meets French resistance
"Despite the fact that Phileas had created bags of snacks for sharing, he discovered that some people preferred to keep things to themselves. In search of a successor to his legendary Mignon Morceaux, Phileas had taken ‘French leave' and was busy sampling the crispiest baguettes and the creamiest Normandy brie. However, finding a baker and a cheese maker who were willing to share their secrets proved more difficult. Curtains twitched, doors closed, heads shook. The whole village kept 'shtum', their bread and their brie weren't going anywhere and especially not into packets! So Phileas decided to escape with as much of the mouth-watering bounty as he possibly could. "If I can just get it back to Consett" he thought "I'll just experiment ‘til I've matched that combination of crispness and ripe cheesiness". This cunning plan was severely hampered by his inability to turn the pedals on his bicycle."
Tour de Fromage
Despite the heavy burden of his loot, Phileas' snail-like peddling was nonetheless faster than the running of his newly made enemies. Within a minute or two he felt relaxed enough to look over his shoulder towards the village. Now the cries and insults were barely audible on the summer breeze and a lonesome pensioner remained, waving a flute (the skinny baguette - not the wind instrument) angrily in the air.
Despite this unseemly episode with the locals, Phileas now felt completely at ease. Oak trees lined the avenue in front of him, orchards of pears and apples flanked him left and right and the whole landscape was dotted with fat brown and white cattle. He'd never seen such a landscape that was so quintessentially English, more English than England in fact, a kind of hyper-real picture postcard of the-way-it-should-have-stayed-forever-England. As his mind wandered, through the rolling hills of Kent, Durham, Worcestershire and Somerset, so did his bicycle, meandering across the carriageway from left to right and back again. It took the odd ferocious beep from a battered old Renault or Citroen to remind him that he was in fact in deepest Normandy - home of Flaubert, William the Conqueror and more importantly, Brie, Camembert, Cider and Calvados.
However, nothing would bring Phileas back to his senses quite so abruptly as the event that was to follow. As he peddled towards the next village people began to appear by the roadside. A few people turned into scores, which soon turned into hundreds -everyone picnicking and sunbathing and waving at Phileas as he rode by. Then suddenly he was struck by the distant sound of something resembling a police siren, which got progressively louder until it dawned on Phileas that the local community must have put a bounty on his head and the Gendarmes were now in hot pursuit, determined to repatriate their bread and cheese. The siren reached a crescendo and Phileas, now petrified at the thought of looking over his shoulder, could feel his heart beating in his throat. The police car, now obviously right on his tail, let out a series of loud angry beeps and Phileas veered to the right in a desperate attempt to avoid being hit.
Within a few seconds Phileas was looking up from the roadside dyke. The police car had sped away and behind it came a swarm of colour, toned bodies, wheels and peddles, followed by a cavalcade of cars, pick-up-trucks and motorcycles with cameramen leaning off the back in what seemed a suicidal fashion. The great spectacle, that the entire village had come out to cheer, had lasted approximately 20 seconds. After which the villagers quickly returned to their party, their lovely bread, cheese and other delicious morsels.
Phileas pushed his buckled bicycle and walked slowly into the centre of the village where the merriment continued. He sat beneath the statue of the woman who is said to have invented his second favourite Normandy cheese. "There's nothing wrong with having second favourites" thought Phileas. "The French clearly love the Tour de France just a smidgen more than they love their food and drink".
Q:What is the name of the village adorned with a statue of the legendary 'Madame of cheese'?