In France

At last! We are in La Belle France at the end of our second day’s travel to Parc Verger.
We are in a place called Viegne which is just South of Tours and Andy and I have just got a bit damp walking into the village/town for a nosy round. It started to rain! Had a mare of an end to the day yesterday. The main route around Rouen has a tunnel which doesn’t allow LPG, so the signs say. I took it to mean my fixed gas tank so came off that road to avoid it. Ended up having to go through Rouen, which was busy, badly signed and full of restrictions on the roads we wanted to go on. Finally managed to escape but ended up on a route which took us in a very roundabout way to the camping. It was, as a bonus, very pretty. Unfortunately, I didn’t handle trying to negotiate my way through Rouen and drive the RV in the chaotic traffic and road system well and had a bit of a blow up. Wasn’t desperately happy with myself afterwards as you can imagine. Amanda hasn’t made comment. Rouen was one of those places that you couldn’t pull over and stop to work out a route so we had to go around and around trying to find a sign that vaguely pointed us in the direction that we wanted to go. Not easy.

We finally got to the camping at Bourg Achard and squeezed Floozie on. Not totally ideal for RVs but manageable. Discovered a new, blue go-faster stripe on the rear quarter, so obviously just caught something going through Rouen, probably a bollard. Anyway, a drop of T-Cut later and it’s all gone. It all kinda knocks your confidence when that sort of thing happens and I’m still quite fragile as it is at the moment, despite the recent improvements. Don’t take the knocks well yet.

Amanda is still struggling with the really nasty chest infection. She’s had nearly a week’s worth of antibiotics and steroids (they’ll put hairs on her chest!) but is still coughing badly. She thinks it’s loosening up but had a bad night last night when she awoke from a nightmare (probably me!) to feel she couldn’t breathe and had a bit of a panic attack. She had to get up for an hour or so to recover. I slept through the whole episode. Bless her, even though she was scared she didn’t wake me. I do like to think she would if it got worse!!

Stuck to the motorways today. Easy, quiet, smooth and worth every cent of the toll charge. Stopped for diesel and LPG along the way which was a combined total of €434. Fuel in France is not much cheaper than over at home now, especially with the Euro being so strong. I paid 1.45l which is about £1.10 I guess. Came as a bit of a shock to the wallet. There were loads of motorbikes from all over Europe heading South at one point. Spoke to French chap who was washing his helmet visor next to me as filled Floozie2 and he told me that there was a bike motorcycle Grands Prix at Le Mans this weekend, hence the proliferation of ‘motos’ There were a lot British bikes heading down.

Latest on the car front. Had a call from Nyetimber on Wednesday morning to say the gearbox was fixed. Hurrah! Unfortunately, they then found a knock on the engine when they took it out for a test drive. They reckon the big end bearings are damaged, so couldn’t let it go out. It was going to be weeks before it would be ready. It seems the gearbox failing has transmitted through to the engine. Oh dear. We said we’d leave it with them and get off. Still not heard anything and I forgot today is Friday and didn’t ring them, so will have to on Monday if I don’t hear anything. Obviously, we are now very concerned about towing this Mazda and have to think carefully about what we are going to do next. Do we give it back or trailer it? Don’t want to do that as it would mean a fairly big trailer. So give it back and get a different car that will tow behind the m/home. We see plenty. Or buy a very small car (Smart?) and a very small trailer, one that would be easier to store when we are on site. Decisions, decisions. We’ll see what Mazda have to say in due course.

Anyway, about to go to a lovely looking bistro in town for dinner. Time to get the bolly out. Should get this sent tomorrow from Parc Verger!

And indeed I have. Lovely day's drive on the country roads, super countryside and villages - real France. Happily camped up at Parc Verger after a really warm welcome and looking forward to a good night's sleep. Will try and post some piccie tomorrow.