No room in Cognac!

Well quite a day today. First of all I want to touch on some important technical stuff regarding the van. Like most people we bought ours with the requisite red propane bottles on board. Alan chatted to some good chums who had travelled in Europe before us and, whilst the boys talked technical, us girls ran the Gin bar - but hey, I digress! The upshot of these conversations meant Alan fitted a refillable system on the van and we now use the red bottles only as back up. We have the yellow bottle which is refillable at pumps in Europe and we have the three different screw on adaptors to adapt to each country we travel in. This saves us a lot of money and has already proved its worth as we refilled our yellow gas bottle yesterday at a filling station for 11€. That is the first time since leaving the UK and we use our onboard services more than serviced sites, so you don’t need to be a mathematician to work out the savings. The cost of conversion will very quickly be recouped, so something you guys may want to consider for travel further afield. We are also really pleased with our outside Silverscreen. This is first van that we have had with the silverscreen, as our previous vans had the internal screens which, in retrospect, caused a lot of condensation inside the van come morning. So, hope you find this info helpful.

Back to Pamproux and my Uncle Pete’s place - we found it. Can you believe, as the crow flies, about 50 yards from the Aire where we stayed the night. It was all locked up but we peered through the gates and could see a lot of the work that Uncle Pete had undertaken during his time there. My Mum - Pete’s sister - and her partner Bill had spent many months down in Pamproux with Uncle Pete, almost always in July which was Bill’s birthday and of course, Bastille Day - so many beers and happy memories are stored in Mum’s memory now both Pete and Bill are no longer with us. And of course, all the stories I had heard from them, fell into place as I stood outside the gates.

You learn, as you travel, that the best laid plans never work out - as opposed to sitting on the sofa, picking a fully organised holiday or cruise, everything usually works out like clockwork. Not so the way we have chosen to travel. We have numerous Aires books, the internet and apps offering all kinds of overnight stops and, at this time of year, it should be a bit of a doddle. Well, no so today. We rocked up at one Aire in the grounds of a Chateau by a river, idyllic in its situation - as we drove by some pretty little tabac and restaurants, I was already playing out the scene as we walked into town to enjoy the pleasures within - not so in this instance. Gated and locked even though our information was that it was open all year. Hey ho, off we go again to the outskirts of Cognac - again planning to buy some brandy to feed my cakes at home - we find the Aire which is in a really busy part of Cognac and, having not given it much thought that this was a Saturday - again by the river - anyway all the bays were full so off we went again. Time is ticking by, so in desperation I look online and literally google Cognac. There was a lovely Aire down by the river - beautiful picture online promising a quieter location. So we stop the van, pop in the co-ordinates and off we go again. Five minutes later the beloved one pipes up “this is the same one as we just left”. “No it’s not!” says I. ”Look at the picture”. Well the old wise owl was right, so we had to drive the same busy quadrangle as before to get out. We needed a breather so we stopped in a lay-by and did some due diligence. We found an Aire at a place called Lionsgate just this side of Bordeaux and were just discussing who would scream the loudest if this place didn’t work out when we drove through this pretty little village and found a lovely spot a very easy walk into the village. We had the makings of chilli on board so my dear boy knocked us up one and now our tummies are beautifully full finished off with a nice slice of fruit cake from home. Job done and, just to add to the ambience, we are under a street lamp tonight which makes everything seem a lot cosier.

A little milestone to close with - we have travelled 1,000 miles to date. Decided not to plan tomorrow’s route til the morning ...............night all 💕