Thursday 5 September

I don’t think this photo loaded last night. This was our walk at Il de Re yesterday

Today – Thursday

Lottie woke me at 6.40am to go out, this time I put her in the lead before she could poo in someone else’s pitch. Fortunately her bowel movements have returned to normal! I had planned to make an early start so had breakfast and got dressed. Paul was not quite so eager to get up. But we were off by 8.30am so it was worth the early start.

Today was all autoroute driving, we had about 250 miles to cover so needed to avoid villages and roundabouts.

Paul is still coughing and spluttering, he must be feeling unwell as when we stopped for a coffee and wee break he suggested I drive 😳 – that doesn’t happen very often, I usually have to virtually kick him out of the driving seat if I want to drive. We met a lovely couple at the services, from the West Midlands, with a Bichon Frise. We let Lottie say hello and we were just telling them that she can be a bit funny with little white dogs when she suddenly bared her teeth and growled and barked at this poor elderly innocent Bichon. I snatched her up and apologised. They were fine about it fortunately.

After a while we set off again, with me driving for the last 100 miles, arriving at our aire at Moissac about 1.30pm. This is where we are:

We had a slight dilemma when we arrived as each bay had room for 2 vans but there were 15 bays with 1 van in each. So wherever we went it was possible to upset someone – being the only English people in an aire full of French people. There was one bay with a table left in it to reserve it so I reversed into that one (the bay, not the table!). I tucked the van right into the corner of the bay, thinking that the other van would come alongside us with their door facing the other way. But they drove into the bay on the other side, so that their door faced ours. Great. We said Bonjour and they did reply but didn’t seem overjoyed to have us share their bay.

After some lunch we cycled into Moissac, I had read that it had a medieval part so we were keen to see that. It did have a large old church and an abbey, and a few older buildings but it was an odd mix. It didn’t quite live up to expectations.

There was a cat wandering around the church that seemed very much at home

You can’t see it on the photo below but the interior walls were all painted with a lovely pattern, I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to do.

The river and canal areas are beautiful. We cycled along the canal for a while, then watched a boat come through 2 of the 3 or 4 locks that were there.

Back at the aire it was very quiet, one of the quietest aires we’ve ever stayed at. But 8e for 24 hours with electric is good value, and only a few miles from the autoroute.

At 5pm there was suddenly a queue of vans waiting to come into the aire, it rapidly started filling up. A gendarme came and had a wander around.

Tomorrow we head south – haven’t actually decided where yet …….