Just a bit too late.....

MONDAY 5-5-25

We were joined by a few more campers yesterday evening. It's something that happens regularly here. The Frogs seem to leave a campsite or Aire rather late in the afternoon and arrive at their next destination much later than I would be happy with. Among the new arrivals is a new neighbour for us who got off to a bad start with me because they nosed their vehicle in to their pitch leaving their habitation door facing ours, so bang went our privacy. I thought they were French but it turns out they a pair of middle class sixty-something Brits who have flown out here and hired a motorhome from Avis so that they can play at being motorhomers. I have nicknamed them Nigel & Belinda.

This morning was chores day and it didn't take too long to clean through and do our handwashing. This was followed by a brave attempt to sit outside and read. The challenge was the 'stiff breeze' that was also very cool wafting across the site. In all the years we've been travelling this is the first time I have ever wished we had a windbreak with us.

After enjoying our lunch we set off for our little walk across the fields to the next village Castelnaud la Chapelle. Upon our arrival we fortified ourselves with a coffee before returning home.

We leave here tomorrow heading not too far away at Cahors. Somewhere that's been on a couple of travelscripts but where we never got around to visiting. Stupidly I forgot to put the French travel guide books onboard before setting off which is not at all helpful. I had to Google 'Cahors' to remind me why we wanted to go there in the first place.

Our destination will be one of two Aires, both of which are within public car parks, and so we'll just have to hope that selfish French motorists haven't parked in those reserved areas.

Tomorrow I shall start a new chapter.

SUNDAY 4-5-25

The forecast was for light rain today lasting all day, but fortunately after about forty-five minutes of it at about 07:30 it has been a nice dry day and a comfortable temperature.

Lots of campers upped sticks and moved this morning. We're guessing today is the last day of kid's Easter school holidays and so everybody is making their way home to either sell their children or go back to work. By lunchtime there were only about ten vehicles left on the site and we had no neighbours either side of us for quite a distance.

We decided to relax until lunchtime when we ate before setting out for a little walk in to the village.

It's a little bit risky on the way to the village as much of the path is missing and we have to use a narrow grass verge or the road itself. But fortunately the road was very quiet.

On the way there we passed the village signs which were turned upside down. This is not a new thing and has being going on for a while. We did have it explained to us once, it's something to do with the farmers protesting to the government about their treatment.  I think it's what they do when they can't afford to buy enough diesel fuel for their tractor to allow them to drive through the streets of Paris, or maybe it's when they've run out of old rubber tyres to set fire to in the streets.

 The village is basically just a row of touristy shops and restaurants with some historical stuff on a road above it. But it's all very nice. The last couple of times we've been here there have been motorhomes parked in the public car park across the road next to the pleasure boat jetties, but now there is a sign up clearly forbidding them. That's a shame, but perfectly understandable. Given that there is a toilet block close by and a fresh water tap I've no doubt many motorhomers have parked there not just overnight but a whole holiday, and it's that kind of selfish attitude which spoils t for the majority of us. The Chef and I would never consider doing such a thing and will normally move on the next day and are always grateful to local authorities who provide Aires and Camperstop's across Europe, with France being the main provider.

I must apologise for the fairly dark pictures uploaded at the beginning of the trip. I sent the camera away for repair after the last trip. All they had to do was replace the zoom switch which had become very jerky. That's all. But it looks as if they tested it or played with it and I ended up with different settings. I'll look to re-tweek those already posted but it won't be until the end of the trip as I just don't have the time. Last night it took me two hours to upload the text and pictures, and it's the pictures that give me the grief.

Sometimes I have to try four times just to get one loaded. When it came time to 'publish' the posting it just wouldn't budge and so I thought I'd refresh the page ..........ZAP, all gone except the text and first two pictures, so I had to do it all again.

Tomorrow after doing some chores and hand-washing we're going for our walk across the fields which will be nice. The forecast is for sunshine and cloud so it should be a comfortable temperature.

This evening's culinary masterpiece from  my darling Chef is to be Spaghetti Bolognese, so with that in mind I went up to the campsite shop and bought a bottle of red wine with a rather nice looking label 'Chateau Rotgut 2024'.

SATURDAY 3-5-25

We had a peaceful night and arose early. We did so well that we were ready to hit the road at 09:00. Google Maps said it was a three hour journey which turned out to be a three and a half hour journey which was challenging. First we had the length of dual carriageway, most of which we travelled along yesterday whilst 'It' took us for a mystery tour away from Cognac. The Chef took one or two pictures of the local vineyards, but I suppose when you've seen one, you've seen them all. Further down the road we approached a French vehicle driven by, presumably, a French 'Remainer' if there could be such a thing.

Once the dual carriageway ended most of the journey was on single carriageways and lots and lots of roundabouts. I barely had time to get in to top gear before I was braking to enter another one. The letter part of the journey was done on a poor road which twisted, turned and went up and down. I was glad when we arrived here at Camping la Plage (N44.824453° E1.169497°) in La Roque-Gageac near Vezac. I did suggest to The Chef that perhaps we could stay an extra day and just laze around the campsite and chill, sadly, on looking at the online weather forecast, tomorrow and Tuesday are going to be a bit wet so there's no point.

Given that this is midway through a Bank Holiday weekend (provided you skive off work on the Friday) we were amazed to see how quiet the campsite was. Even the Aire had only two vehicles on it. The Chef having popped in to do the deal was told we could pitch wherever we wanted, so we bagged about the only empty one next to the river Dordogne. Then I realised that given the grief we had getting here it is pretty safe to assume French folk don't feel it's worth the effort visiting for just two or three days.

It didn't take us long to get set up after which we could enjoy lunch. This was followed by lazing around interrupted only by my need to scrub the windscreen, which again has collected all manner of French flying things.

As it will be a bit wet tomorrow we'll go for a walk in to the village, such as it is, and on Monday we'll go for our enjoyable hike across the fields and beside the river.

This evening's culinary experience is to be pizza and salad, which may be washed down with a couple of glasses of liquid grapes. I don't know yet, I think I might leave it as a surprise.

On the home front I see Reform UK have done very well in the local council elections. Fairly predictable really since the electorate have yet to forgive the Tories for their woeful 14 years in power, though to be fair they did have to deal with the world financial crash in 2008 and the pandemic. But then again so did every other country. Then we have Smarmer Starmer, Westminster's answer to the village idiot. Still you've got to hand it to him he's taken some tough decisions since he came in to power last year. First it was taking the winter fuel payment off old age pensioners, buoyed by that success, he's now after robbing the disabled of many of their payments. I think it would be unkind to suggest he's targeting the vulnerable who are easy pickings while borrowing billions more and putting up taxes to buy off all his union mates. Less said about the Liberal Democrats led by a man who rides about on a hobby horse as well as partaking in other stupid photo opportunities the better. Whether or not these votes for Reform are just protest votes or a move in a new direction, we'll have to wait until the next General Election. Sadly we've got to wait over four years for it.

FRIDAY 2-5-25

It's been a taxing day. Thankfully we had another peaceful night and awoke in time to get scrubbed up and all the chores done in time to hit the road at about 10:00.

Our first stop was the local Carrefour supermarket, though it wasn't terribly special. The Chef has gone off them these days, but we did manage to get most of what was on the shopping list. Then it was off to Cognac. I hadn't studied the route but knew it wasn't too far. The satnav told us it would take about two hours, which seemed quite a long time but hey ho, 'It' knows best.

The journey was pleasant enough though the roads were very busy, clearly many French citizens have taken today off as well to make a long weekend of it. We knew something was wrong when we were seeing signs to Cognac telling us we were not many kilometres away, and yet the satnav was telling us we still had about another hours driving. The final straw was when we were bypassing Cognac and the satnav told us we should continue on that particular road for another fifty-seven kilometres. It was a dual carriageway and we had to just stay on it until it narrowed to single lane and I could do a 'U' turn . Next I pulled over and checked the coordinates I had used on Google Maps. They were correct and yet the damned satnav was having none of it.

 On the return towards Cognac we agreed that we'd just follow signs to Cognac and ignore the satnav. At no time did 'It' concede it was wrong, so much so that once we were in Cognac with the satnav still wanting us to do a 'U' turn I pulled over, turned it off and reached up to take the old Snooper spare satnav out of a cupboard above my head. Having fired it up it informed us that the Aire in town was just seven minutes away. That was a big improvement on being told to do a 'U' turn and drive for another forty-five minutes. Sadly, and typically when we arrived at the Aire (N45.698578° W0.332776°) instead of finding seven motorhome places beside the river we found the whole area rammed with cars enabling their selfish drivers to feed their faces in the nearby restaurants.

Plan 'B' was to go to the local E Leclerc supermarket located just on the edge of town next to the river Charente. It was quite a big complex and so we hid down the bottom of the car park near the river. Next it was a walk in to town to tray and find one or two of the famous Cognac wine producers as well as the town centre. We achieved it all having come across 'Martell' and 'Remi Martin'. We popped in to Martell's gift shop to discover brandy at over one hundred and sixty Euros a bottle. So when we arrived back at the E Leclerc supermarket I did what any English gentleman would do - I bought a bottle of port.

We had a bit of a setback when the local security chap with the aid of Google Translate told us we cannot stay overnight, so that was that. The Chef popped back in to the store to buy some more bits which she would have bought tomorrow morning and we made our way out of town to an HGV parking area (N45.681971° W0.326435°). And this is where we'll be spending the night having rung our campground  beside the river Dordogne who told us there was no need to book, just turn up, which we will do tomorrow. From here it's about a three hour drive away.

THURSDAY 1-5-25

Well, it looks as if the noisy individual from the previous night has left the camp because we all enjoyed a nice peaceful night's sleep.

This morning was a bit cooler due to high cloud in the sky, but it was still very pleasant.

After scrubbing up I cracked on with my bit of hand washing. I would normally erect the clothes airer in which to dry the clothes, but today required a little discretion. A couple of days before we came away the white vest I was wearing fell victim to a little DIY accident. I told The Chef that I'd wear it for the first couple of days of the trip until the weather warmed up and then throw it away. She suggested I keep it to use as a cloth to clean anything or mop up spills, which seemed a good idea, but first it would need washing before I would use it in such a way. So today it was washed along with my other bits and pieces with them all being adorned upon my outside folding chair. The vest was carefully hidden behind my towel because believe me, a white vest with a four-inch skidmark of golden brown water based varnish on it is not a good look.

We decided to have an early lunch before setting off in to town. On leaving we were surprised at how many fellow campers had left. The Chef suggested that perhaps it was because the campsites fees go up today for the summer season.

On reaching town we were surprised at the number of people down there. It was no busier than a couple of days ago when we were down there. Perhaps the fact that there were no busses running today making it harder for folk to get here may have played a part.

The Chef wanted to take a look at the road which has arches in it. I think she imagined large arches crossing from one side of the road to the other, but when we got there, sadly they were just arches along both sides of the streets providing a shady path outside the shops. Never mind, it was on our way to a general wander around. After reaching Place du Marché where I took a picture of the carousel, we made our way to the covered food market. They were already packing up to go, though I imagine they'd been there since very early this morning. We always enjoy looking at the local food on display. You could be forgiven for thinking the French will eat absolutely anything, and generally they seem to butcher their meat differently to us back home, though I don't think I've ever seen the skinned arse-end of a donkey for sale. Maybe they keep such delicacies under the counter for their more discerning customers.

After more wandering around I treated The Chef to a delicious ice cream. Again we selected to have it dollopped in to a cardboard tub to avoid melting ice cream running from a cornet down our arms.

Back at the campsite it's been a lazy time, though having seen how busy the dump station was this morning I think I'm going to empty our tanks and top up the fresh water with a bucket and watering can which means come the morning we can leave the campsite just as soon as we're ready.

Tomorrow we're off to Cognac. It's been on our 'to visit' list for a while but we've never seemed to have quite got there. It was to have been Rochefort first, but having spent three days here, and we've been there before anyway, we're missing it out.

WEDNESDAY 30-4-25

We had a disruptive start to last night, both being woken by a French male being very loud, I think whilst paying with kids outside not too far from us. I think it may have been down in the dingly dell. It didn't stop until 00:30, not bad considering there should be no noise after 22:00. In fact the campsite rules state that if you either permit somebody on site without permission or make noise after 22:00 you can be banished from the site immediately with no possibility of a refund. We'll have to wait until tonight to see if a fellow Frog dobbed him in to the management and he's gone.

We decided that today would be a bit of a lazy one, so a very late breakfast consisted of toast and whatever on top prepared under the grill of the new oven I bought before this trip. The last one was from Lakeland cost one hundred pounds over ten years ago, but it had seen better days. The newbie is larger and only cost eighty-five which I thought was pretty good.

This afternoon was just a leisurely stroll around the breakwaters and marina complex. We felt three days trudging around town in the heat was a bit too much, and as The Chef fancied being in town tomorrow we've dodged it today.

We arrived home at about 14:30 to enjoy a leisurely afternoon sat out in the sunshine, made more comfortable by the trees on our pitch.

By the end of today I shall be some £187 poorer as the annual renewal fee for the blog due on 12th May, but they're taking  it today. I hadn't expected to renew it, but there you go, life is full of surprises.

Tomorrow I've got a bit of hand washing to do before we head in to town for as long as it takes to see all we want. I'm expecting it to be very busy as it's Labour Day, May 1st, another day for the French to do nothing.

So that's it really, a pretty nothing day. This evening my darling Chef will be serving up a chicken curry. "Indian or Thai?" was my choice. I've settled for an Indian washed down with a glass or two of cold grapes.

If we're to sit outside this evening I must remember to apply some 'Jungle Formula' as the local flying biters have already taken a fancy to fresh white flesh.

The chair on the left is used by President Macron when he comes to visit

WEDNESDAY 29-4-25

It was a lovely peaceful night, though rather warm. I think we'll wait until after this weekend to see what the weather forecast is for future days. We don't want to change the duvet to the summer weight now just in case this week was a fluke and things get chillier next week.

We lay in bed this morning listening to the wonderful sound of neighbours leaving, though they'll be replaced I've no doubt as the campsite is supposed to be fully booked over the Bank Holiday on Thursday.

Their exodus made it easier for us to find shower cubicles down at the toilet block, though with our being in France there tends not to be a rush for the showers by the natives. I think that's why they invented perfume so that they could stick something on themselves to cover up their aroma. I all started many years ago when folk would dab a little raw sewage behind their ears to improve their smell. I think that's why it's referred to as 'eau du toilet' - toilet water. I believe it was a gay French flower arranger who came up with the idea of distilling flower petals instead of using sewage, and they've never looked back since.

The showers were the push button variety and  really powerful, so much so you wouldn't want to be under one if you had sunburn. Right now it isn't taking me long to do my hair as I visited my hairdresser, Blind Brian, just the day before we left. My word he enjoyed himself. So much so that I could comb my hair with a toothbrush. I look like one of those actors in 'Peaky Blinders'.Even Brian's guide dog looked away in embarrassment.

We decided to chill out during the morning enjoying the sun as that's when it bathes our pitch in lovely warm sunshine. In the afternoon we're in the shade.

After lunch we trudged in to town for a wander round the marina and old town. It was very warm, about 25°C today, but thankfully there was a nice cooling breeze. I think it will take us a few days to get used to the weather and this lifestyle again.

Our first visit was to the Church of St Sauveur, only because it was just across the road from where we were. For some strange reason they decided to display its old peel of bells in the aisle rather than melt them down and make effigies' of Jesus or something.

After walking around the old town it was time for a rather delicious ice cream before making our way back. The campsite is in a very good location and I'm sure they could charge more if the wished.

On our return I ended up having a nap in my chair outside while The Chef took herself off for a lay down on the bed.

It will take us three weeks to reach Villenueve Loubet near Nice in Provence where we'll stay for two weeks. Hopefully we'll be fitter and more acclimatised by then and will be prancing along the beach there like Pammy and The Hoff.

Tomorrow we'll remember to take the map in to town with us.

MONDAY 28-4-25

In the end we didn't hike to Chartres Cathedral. We were both quite tired and The Chef calculated that it would be a good half hour's walk to get there.

This morning, having had a nice peaceful night we set off for La Rochelle. Yesterday the satnav took us for a lovely tour across Chartres and its backstreets, thankfully today it behaved itself and soon deposited us on the correct road out of town. Why it took us the way it did yesterday I have no idea.

My original cunning plan for today was to keep off the toll roads as much as possible and follow the A10/910 to Tours and beyond. It may well have taken us two days to do it that way, but in the end, mindful that Thursday is a Bank Holiday here, and campsites would be very busy, we elected to just go the quickest route and keep our fingers crossed we could get a pitch.

The road to Tours was very pleasant with much of it being dual carriageway, though with lots of fairly low speed limits which YoYo'd up and down. We had our lunch amongst the HGV's at a rest area on the toll road, and were pleasantly surprised to find a free dump station which we made use of just in case we had to remain self sufficient for a few more days.

We were tested a trife in the latter stages of the journey due to roadwork's and their subsequent detours. Oh what fun.

We arrived at Camping Municipal Le Soleil (N46.150737 W1.158235) just after 15:00 and I had my fingers crossed whilst The Chef went in to the site and try to get us a pitch. She was successful and had booked four nights rather than the planned three so that we weren't on the road homeless come the Bank Holiday. The only trouble was that the pitch they gave us was gross and located down a dingly dell amongst large tents awaiting groups of who knows who to come and fill them. So after persisting with the very pleasant young ladies in the office we managed to bag a proper pitch on the edge of the site complete with electricity and all for the princely sum of €110, much pricier than usual but that's what you get when you try and pitch in a busy period.

I think they call the Bank Holiday 'Labour Day', a traditional socialist day for doing nothing at the bosses expense. I don't know how they celebrate it. Maybe they'll build ramparts across the streets and sing a few songs from' Les Miserables', or perhaps the much more up-to-date version made famous by the Vichy government during WWII entitled  'Just Call Us a Bunch of Surrender Monkeys'.

Once parked up I set about giving the windscreen a good clean. Some campers arrive at sites with lovely clean screens, but our is usually plastered with all manner of bugs, and I wanted to get them off before they dried on good and proper.

Tomorrow we'll change in to sunny holiday clothing in the hope it doesn't feel too chilly down by the water.

Because we've been to La Rochelle before, in fact the pitch we were on last time is just two down behind us, we won't need to stay out all dat trying to do and see everything. I think we'd like to mix and match some wandering around the town and marina coupled with some chill time outside in our chairs.

SUNDAY 27-4-25

We crossed the Channel on Le Shuttle late yesterday evening. For the first time ever we booked a return ticket, mainly to keep the health insurance people happy. In the past we've never had to bother but unfortunately Nationwide Building Society decided to move the travel insurance offered on their Flexplus current account to Aviva, who are more twitchy about everything.

The night was spent in the large car park at the Auchan supermarket near Boulogne (N50.734137° E1.675223°) which was a nice quiet spot.

We had to forgo the luxury of a nice hot shower this morning due to the uncertainty of fresh water availability on our way to La Rochelle, our first planned stop. Never mind, it just meant after a lie in (we lost an hour crossing to France) The Chef was ready to pick up some bits from the store when it opened at 10:00.

With little nibble luxuries onboard we hit the road heading for Chartres via Rouen/Evreux/Dreux. Fortunately the satnav got us through Rouen, which I would vote to be France's ugliest city, very well. I swear we've never been the same way twice each time we've come through, then it was lunch parked up among the HGV's who are not allowed on the roads on a Sunday, before completing our journey in glorious sunshine to the aire at Chartres, somewhere we'd not stopped off at before. We'd made good time having arrived at 15:00 and so we debated whether to stop here the night or move on and try and get another couple of hours driving in. Eventually we concluded that it was a bit of a hike in to town from here just so that we could look to see if they had completed the sandblasting of the interior walls of the cathedral. The last time we visited it looked like the inside of a coal shed. Having eventually decided to call it a day we settled in and relaxed.

Unsurprisingly we are having internet connection problems again. I don't think it's the fault of 3Mobile, more like Huawei's whose Mi-Fi's we use. It will have to be sorted in the coming days. Right now we've got to get back in the swing of being back on the road for what is planned to be our final trip before selling Freddie Fendt. We, certainly I, will miss him, but I think it's time to move on. Things have changed since the pandemic and it's not as much fun for us, certainly more expensive and there are more people travelling with motorhomes, which puts pressure on campsites to provide enough pitches to fill the increased demand. But right now we're grateful to the local council of Chartres for providing us with a nice parking area, though sadly it doesn't have a dump station. Never mind, you can't have everything, especially when it's free.

Tonight's visual entertainment may well be the first DVD in the 'Endeavour' television series which I found thoroughly entertaining and will now introduce The Chef to as she quite likes detective-type TV series.