Wednesday 28 August

I had an interrupted nights sleep as Lottie decided to jump off the bed about 3am and throw up, I knew I needed to get up and wipe it up before one of us stepped on it in the morning. 🥴 She decided to sleep on the floor after that so I left her to it.

Consequently I wasn’t in a rush to get up and we weren’t ready to leave until about 9am. Paul queued for the waste water drain, I was outside waiting to get him in the right position. A British van was in front of us, as I saw their faces I realised I knew them. I walked around to the drivers window and said ‘don’t you live around the corner from me, on Sticklepath Hill?’ He looked at me and said ‘yes, possibly’. Once I’d reminded him that he actually came to a meeting in our house about 6 months ago, he remembered me (I obviously made a big impression on him !) He then had a problem with his tap connections and Paul lent him the correct one. As he was going to fill up with water (which can take a long, long time) we moved to the other drain on the aire, unfortunately someone there was also filling with water so we abandoned the whole idea and took our waste water with us.

Only half an hour out of Honfleur the rain came down.

We took our time down to our next aire in St Jean due Mayenne, just above Laval. We avoided the toll roads and saw some beautiful countryside and pretty French villages. En route we stopped at a large Super U to stock up on wine and have some lunch whilst it rained.

Fortunately by the time we reached our destination the rain had stopped. This aire is lovely, it used to be a municipal campsite and still has several hedged individual pitches, along with a shower, toilets, and electric. There is also a BBQ area with picnic benches and tables looking onto the canal which runs alongside. On the other side of the canal there is a cycle path so once we had pitched up we set off for a bike ride to give Lottie a good run. It was a lovely cycle ride with beautiful scenery. We cycled to the next village, Paul had a wander around the church, and we cycled back. Lottie had perked up and enjoyed her 8 mile run, including a dip in the canal – she had to have a shower when we got back.

Opposite us in the Aire there seems to be some sort of rally with about 8 vans. The average age seems to be about 75 which is great – I hope we’re still travelling at that age!

Paul cooked our burgers and onion on our electric hot plate which upset a French man who was walking by, he was horrified because he said there was a charcoal BBQ down by the water, he threw his hands up in despair!

A lovely friendly lady came around about 8pm to collect the money, 9 euros for the aire and 1 Euro 10 cents in tax. Very good value.

Tomorrow we head for the coast, near to Noirmoutier. Hopefully the sun will come back!