How we brought the sunshine northwards and how Harry gave up on the ice.

….. fortunately when it didn’t matter too much.

For three days now we’ve travelled North in sunshine, occasionally losing it for ten minutes or so, and always thinking ‘there’s bad weather ahead’. Well, there may be, but we haven’t got to it yet.

Entry 25 ended with us parked ‘on the road’ at Nailloux, which turned out to be a very pleasant, lakeside park, with a swimming pool, well worth a visit at a warmer time of year, but it was a very cold night, and the thought of moving on to where it’s even colder is very intimidating. If we were re-designing this van one change we would make would be to put the heater button where we could reach it from the bed! Getting up was hard! and there was a hint of rain in the air, but before we were ready to move off (11.30) clouds were thinning and breaking and the sun was coming through. After about an hour and a half we found a hypermarché with a cafeteria, so we decided to have a hot lunch and a light supper. But this took time, so our distance travelled before dark was a pathetic 139 kms! Never mind, this brought us to Cayreich, just north of Montauban, where a very nice site owner came out to greet us and showed us where to park with the vehicles still coupled. There was Wi-fi, but only in reception, which was unheated – that’s when I e-mailed you all. An interesting pre-Christmas punch of Crème de Cassis, boiling water, vodka, cloves and a cinnamon stick thawed me out back at the van, before our supper of soup and a poached egg. Then for the first time we left the heating on (lowest setting) all night. It made a difference. Interior temperature at 6.45am was 9.5! Outside was well below zero.

The morning (Sat 4th), bright and fine, but freezing, presented us with an interesting choice and challenge. We needed to let the ‘grey water’ go and there was a disposal point close the van; but the manoeuvre to get over it was going to be somewhere between difficult and impossible with the vehicles connected. Having taken pains NOT to disconnect overnight what were we to do? We unhooked the towbar and the electrics from Harry, but left every else attached to the car. We backed over the drain and let the water go. Then to avoid a further complication of a very tight U-turn when re-coupled, this pair of old dogs tried a new trick. We ‘walked’ the car round in a circle, Carol driving it very slowly and me holding the A-frame off the ground. We managed.

On the road at 10.30! Re-joined the main road where we’d left it and travelled on towards Brive. We stopped for ‘twelvesies’ in a lay-by with snow beside and around us:

  and from then on the surroundings were increasingly snowy and the villages Christmas-cardy. Just south of Brive we joined that section of toll-free motorway which we had used on the way south (and spent the night beside). This time we prepared (unusually) a hot lunch in one of those excellent lay-bys for which French motorways are well known.

At Limoges we left the motorway to go to a Carrefour supermarket we could see. It was horrendously busy and parking was very difficult – impossible within the bays. There were piles of snow about a metre high at regular intervals – obviously folk who hadn’t shopped for days were out taking advantage of the safer roads and the sunshine. After a respectable 278 kms we were heading for the village of Chateauponsac. A nice lady on the phone had said we could park ‘on the road’ or ‘round the back of the toilet block’. OK. It was dark, but Satnav worked this time (as she had done in Toulouse the day before – I missed that bit!) and we turned into the site onto about six inches of snow. Obvious where the intended parking spot was, round to the right. Then Harry went into a slide, nothing spectacular, just a little slip and only a slight up hill, but once stopped, he was NOT going again – not with Little Madam hanging on to his back end! (‘What do you think this is? Dancing on ice?’) I had to get out and ‘investigate the facilities’ – everything there and beautifully clean. We were about to start uncoupling, which seemed the only option, when I realised (Oh, no!) there was a car behind. Anxiety soon relieved, however: ‘Bonjour, Monsieur-Dame. Je suis Valerie.’ It was the nice lady on the phone. Don’t worry! – There’s no-one else here, if anyone else comes, they can go the other way round. If you’re all right about it, you can stay just there – will your cable reach the nearest hook-up point? (Yes) Be careful if you get out, though – it’s icy just under your door. Then she showed us a second all-in-one shower room. ‘This one is heated – it’s for the gites, but there’s no-one there’. She unlocked the office and took payment of €14.50, gave us lots of literature (the site is also the tourist centre), stayed long enough to be sure the cable connected and we were OK. ‘If you have any problem, just call – same number you used before, it diverts to my mobile. And in the morning, take your time, the ice may melt, or if you need help – call me.’          Most people are nice – except French drivers; I might go on about them sometime! 

Footnote: Now here’s a question: Why would anyone take a spaghetti server into the shower with them and leave it there, by accident or intent?

  But that is what we found at Nailloux! (Where, as seems normal at this time of year, only one section of the ‘sanitaires’ is open. There it was the ladies. Last night it was the gents!) Now, we don’t know the answer to this question, we just know what use I put it to. Answers (decent ones!) on the blog, please. Lateral thinking!