Tuesday 3 September

Another lovely day, activity and weather wise.

This morning we cycled to La Flotte to go to the market. I love markets, Paul not so much. But he absolutely loves La Flotte market because it is quite small with some amazing food stalls. Fish, fruit, ready cooked food to take away, stunning desserts, we came away with oysters (5e a dozen, we only had 6 for Paul), crevettes and langoustines for lunch. 11e the lot. It was all delicious. I did think I’d bought cooked langoustines until Paul pointed out that they were extremely flexible and raw, out came the pan and some garlic butter. We also have some prune tart for dessert tonight.

After our seafood lunch we had a quiet sit in the sun and then cycled to Saint Martin de Re, the main town of the island. As we neared the town the number of cyclists increased substantially. This island is covered by a large network of cycle paths and you get all ages cycling, whole families with children in trailers, dogs in trailers. When we arrived our first port of call was – as Paul calls it – the donkey soap shop, to get him some more soap on a rope. He was disappointed as they, for the first time in about 8 years, didn’t have any citron ones. He had to have lime. They also wouldn’t take card so we had to make a visit to the hole in the wall for some cash.

We had a wander around the shops, which seem to have increased, and then a wander around the harbour, looking at all of the boats.

Got lost on the way back to the campsite, had a short detour before getting back to where we should have been. But that’s all part of the fun. Lottie has run most of the 12 miles or so that we’ve done today and is now passed out on my lap. Peace. Actually it wasn’t very peaceful just now as the young German couple next to us had a very loud shouting match. It involved their young son (aged about 4) and a scooter and the words ‘kaput’. Paul, who knows a few words of German said it was something about the boy and another boy hitting and breaking the scooter with a stone. It all seems to have calmed down now thank goodness. I was glad I was in the van as it was very loud.

We’ve decided to stay another night. Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny so I’m hoping to get to the beach.