Travelling through France - Tuesday & Wednesday

Tuesday

I am awake first in the villa at just before 7:30. No early rising kids it seems. I spend an hour or so reading Kepler's Witch as the household gradually wakes up and some sort of order begins to take shape based around breakfast. Jerome admits to his mother that the shutter to the balcony has been broken (by Vanessa last night) and this starts them all off on another animated discussion. Vanessa is wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a strappy top this morning. Jerome thinks she should wear more but I am quite happy to see her in this outfit.

We have breakfast and I have various pastries and items of fruit given to me for my journey. I am on my way by just after 10:00 after quite a remarkable 24 hours!

Overnight, I have discovered that I was biten dozens of times by mosquitoes yesterday. My left arm is particularly bad with 15 bites from my elbow to my fingers. These have swollen up somewhat am I am forced to use most of our remaining cream this morning - not good

I rang Linda from a service station to update her on what has happened with Jerome and our trading planes and to discuss the remaining wine buying. No news from Emma for the last few days.

My drive is mainly spent pondering on the new trading plans and what we'll need to sort out over the next few weeks. I am tentatively planning to have us both ready to trade by the week commencing September 6th (after I will have finished my dissertation - hopefully - and when Emma will be on her next trip to Africa)

A gradual increase in tiredness as I make my way round past Carcassonne and up towards Toulouse. My target is Cahors which I roll into about 7:30. The really good Supermarket for wine is still open and though rather dead on my feet, I finish our trip's wine buying with 24 Cahors reds and a dozen other local wines. Then to McDonalds for a Big Mac. As luck would happen, this is located close to the French equivalent of a Travel lodge and I can't resist a room for E45.

I was probably asleep by 8:30

Wednesday

Overslept and didn't wake up until 7:45. Still I am out the door by just after 8:00 and soon on the motorway to Limoges. A stop at a service station for food reveals Linda's favourite rose wine on sale, so two more bottles are bought - that definitely is the end of wine buying.

The weather gets worse as I head north. Past Tours it becomes quite dark and then starts to pour down. This happened last time I drove to Cherbourg and is not a good advert for this region of France.

The last photo from this year's road trip - an Aire somewhere near Tours - Wednesday afternoon

I arrive at Cherbourg around 5:00 in plenty of time for the departure at 7:45. Time to have a rest, read a bit, have a really good stretch. I actually have a sleep on the boat, stretched out between two rows of seats in a quiet area. Then the final hour or so to drive from Portsmouth to home. No chance that I will unpack much tonight