SOMETIMES nothing happens even in races like the Tour de France. It's then that a man on a motorbike takes his message board and writes Rien à signaler, or just RAS, and drives up and down to show it to the riders.

It means "nothing worth mentioning".

To be honest, we didn't expect anything much today. The first day, even two days, of a tour are likely to be familiar if you set off from home. You're on roads you've ridden many times before.

And the chances of excitement were reduced because we rode in just the afternoon, to below the striking hilltop town of Penne d'Agenais, because the morning was occupied by final preparations and by shutting up the house. More than that, we have been on too many tours in which we've been over-ambitious on the first day and had to repent, or at any rate recover, over the next two days.

Penne is one of those places so old that nobody knows quite when it was established. Why it's up on a hill is more obvious; we may think we live in troubled times now but back then it paid to live on a hill because you saw your enemies coming towards you and you hoped they'd be puffed out from dragging their cannons and armour to the top.

And once you were up there, it was best to build a striking church so that everyone could see you had God on your side.

Our ride was, in order, flat, downhill, up and down and finally down again, to the river Lot. The weather was soupily soporific and, the campsite owners being more concerned with a late lunch and a doze, we lay in the shade and nodded off. Such are the joys of cycle-touring.

There is another cycle-tourist here, an Italian travelling alone.

"Today I came from Aiguillon", she said in French, citing a town named after a needle or spire. She explained her route, which seemed to involve following the Lot and staying with friends. She is lying now on a sun-lounger maybe 30m away, talking Italian on the phone.

And apart from that, and a hint in the sky that it may rain, rien à signaler.