Sunday7th July- Limogne Market day

Jennifer awoke early and went for a walk whilst Noel enjoyed a few more zzz’s and then we enjoyed a bacon and egg and tomato breakfast, nothing like being in France, and then headed off to the Limogne market which was really buzzing.

This is a great little market to visit as mostly locals selling and also buying and we were able to get some nice strawberries, cherries and an excellent melon which will be devoured over the next few days.

We went to the usual café and enjoyed a beer and then in the very hot sun

Walked back to the car and headed to Carjac to see if there was a laundry as we do not want to use the site equipment which is old and we don’t want to give the owner any more cash.

A pleasant drive to Carjac and we found a newly equipped laundry which we will use in the next few days and then back for a cold sausage an bread lunch.

The afternoon comprised of swimming, going on the internet for email and then back for tea. En route back to our van Mike and Paula ( the couple from Birmingham) could not wait to tell about how the site owner had totally embarrassed  himself with a set of French regular customers who keep their caravan nearby and it was delivered last week for placing on site. Unfortunately he had placed the wrong caravan on the site and went to get theirs only to hitch it up, but not properly, and start moving only to find the caravan dropped off without his knowledge and it was blocking the road with the French couple extremely angry. Eventually he got the correct van on site and then tried to move the wrong van away and had the same problem in hitching and after moving off the van came loose and was rolling backwards uncontrolled and nearly smashed in to French couple caravan. At the same time a Dutch elderly couple arrived and he without checking properly backed his van into a tree, all of this happening within ten minutes, Mike and Paula could not stop laughing whilst the site owner had been totally embarrassed in front of 20/30 campers and went off in a huff, serve him right.

We passed British site workers who watch Andy Murray at Wimbledon and so we joined for a few minutes to see him finally win before heading home for a light tea.

Well this is the last blog for a couple of weeks as over the next two weeks we shall be just shopping, sightseeing, reading, cycling and eating and drinking and nothing really interesting for the reader.

We shall start again as we leave here to head up to Le Havre on 20^st July to meet our American friends from Austin Texas with whom we shall be touring France with for ten days.

So that’s it for the moment.

Update- Just heard that site owner damaged the French couples caravan when moving it, b great..

Saturday 6th July- More caravan cleaning and then a BBQ

Noel decided to clean up the outside of the caravan which had got quite dirty really and this took quite a while as it was getting very hot and showing about 35 degrees by early afternoon.

Then some reading and rest and then Noel continued cleaning the bits that were now in the shade and the result is very satisfying. The afternoon was spent relaxing and in the late afternoon the couple from Birmingham that we have seen here several times before came across for a chat for about and hour and some and then at 6.30 pm the BBQ went on and we enjoyed some Toulouse sausages with some nice rib eye steak, beautifully cooked and washed down with a really excellent Cahors wine. Gosh this is a tough life.

Friday 5th July- What a strange man

The owner of this site is a little strange and our early exploits with the electrics and move your car on to your own pitch were stupid and know at about ten am Jennifer decided to hand the bedding up put side for thirty minutes to air. Whilst I was away collecting water the owner who was walking by came and TOLD Jennifer to remove it immediately and stay on your own pitch. Bloody cheek, it was only going to be there for thirty minutes or so as nobody arrives on site before lunch and the site was only 20% full.

When I got back Jennifer was upset and so after a little while I went down to reception to find the owner only he was not there and so I gave his wife a hard time and demanded that her husband come and apologise to Jennifer when he gets back. She was rather sheepish then defensive bit it does take two.

Needless to say we have not seen him hardly since so let’s wait and see what happens. We did consider moving to another site but we do like this place and why should we inconvenience ourselves for this idiot, anyway let’s wait and see what will happen.

Thursday 4th July- Time for lunch

We decided to do a big shop and have lunch in Villefranche–de-Rouergue which is one of our favourite towns in the area and we have used a particular restaurant there for lunch for years and so off we headed and arrived just around lunchtime. En route we stopped off at a Hotel we have booked some friends at for the end of the month to take a quick look and it is right opposite St Cirq La Popie and is a lovely place and we are sure they will enjoy it.

The place was packed with locals as usual plus some extras as they were making a film in the streets around the area and also there was a special evening function being planned for Thursday/Friday and Saturday nights with fireworks and over 50 famous guests??, but not for us. They were also filming a snogging session in a local bookshop much to the amusement of the owner.

After lunch we did out usual walking the streets around town and then Noel decided to get a haircut as it was getting a little shaggy and hot and so we found a barbers previously used and wash and cut later and ten kilos lighter we left.

We did some shopping in LeClerc and then drove through the beautiful countryside in to little villages with some amazing old buildings and then a did a diversion back to Carjac to buy some more of that delicious cake.

So dinner tonight was cake with strawberries and crème fraische, can’t be beaten.

Much warmer again this evening and the weather seems set for a 

Wednesday 3rd July- Looks like the weather is good

The trouble is that when you fall behind in writing this blog you tend to forget what you did in the last hour let alone in the last week.

Anyway the weather has improved significantly with temperatures shooting up plus 30 degrees centigrade with lovely blue skies. What is nice that at night the temperature drops back again back to 16 up to 18 degrees and cool enough to sleep well.

Anyway, we did another little trip in on Carjac which is a lovely little town and had a cup of coffee in the main Hotel and then found this lovely shop selling all sors of pastries and cakes and we tried one which was delicious. It was a fluffy pastry with apple and some other stuff but tasted great and made a mental note to try again.

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the inside of the caravan which had got a little dirty but less than one hour later all was clean and we got rid of the ants which had found the sugar.

We had some nice salmon pasta tonight, really good and looking forward till tomorrow.

Tuesday 2nd July- Let’s sort the power out.

The site allows six amps per pitch, so I reset the control panel to allow only six amps and again we were having problems and then the site owner and his electrical handyman arrived and found out that in the box of four plug sockets, the old French type with only two pins, one was working normally, one was broken and two were on reverse polarity and this was the problem. We changed to the working one and everything has been fine since.

All this happened after we were having a late breakfast and trying to enjoy our croissants but never mind. We then spent some time sorting ourselves out and early afternoon enjoyed some great pate and a sleep in the relaxing chair until the site owner arrived saying that the rain storm due tonight would now come around 3pm with winds of 50 mph, so be prepared.

The new owners of this site have really invested and they have improved pretty much all of the infrastructure without ruining the effect and the views etc.

At 3pm nothing happened and again at four, five and six but we made ready and eventually the rain came but it was not to heavy and no wind at all hardly.

As we had been warned about a storm Noel kept checking until about 1pm and then gave up, oh well that’s camping.

Monday 1st July- The sun is shining

We took all the D roads down to Perigeaux and this took about ninety minutes as we were a little worried about one town near the site where the truck route is pretty much like the car route but just avoiding one corner.

Once we reached Perigeaux we joined the motorway East and joined the motorway South near Brive and at about 2.45 we arrived at Larnagol.

We checked out the pitch we had booked and then got everything set up in the heat, it was about 29 degrees centigrade and we even got the awning up after losing buckets of sweat. Then we discovered the power problem, the powered site connection kept breaking and after lots of fiddling we lit the gas heater instead of using the electric, and let’s sort it tomorrow.

We were both a little tired and then decided to test the snacks in the bar area which were great.

We were both so tired that sleeping was a little challenging plus the fact it was a good ten degrees warmer than we had experienced elsewhere.

Sunday 30th June- Getting ready to move on

It was a bit grey again this morning and after a bit of shopping in the local Inter-Marche which was quite busy considering the known fact that the French do not like shopping on a Sunday. We hit the British counter and bought three packs of bacon, just in case we can’t find it anywhere else, and then headed back to the site.

We sorted the caravan ready for travel the next day and then suddenly the sun came out and we could enjoy for a while including eating outside for dinner, something we could not do for the past days.

We paid the bill for the site and the receptionist gave us a good discount and even said that after six nights we could get one night free, oh well next time perhaps

A quiet evening was spent reading and an early night as we wanted to leave as early as possible the next day for Larnagol.