I drove around the surrounding countryside looking at properties whose details I collected from the estate agent (immoblier) yesterday. I’m so taken with Auxerre I’m considering buying here. You can get a really lovely 3 bedroom cottage in the countryside surrounded by vineyards and about 20 mins drive into town for around 180,000 euro. I picked up a lovely bottle of red for 2.10 euro in the village of saint cyr le colons.
Had to fill up again! Jees this is getting expensive. Need to cut down on my miles per day while my house back home replenishes the income (see equation 1).
Just stopped off at the super-mache to replenish sausage and wine supplies. Lets just say I can’t see myself losing weight on this trip! Biscuits are cheap too. I did also buy a lot of fresh veg.
Landrover man
While driving out to one village (by the name of Parly) a landrover defender was driving behind me. When I got to the sign say ‘Welcome to Parly’, I pulled over to check my directions and the other guy pulled up alongside. He very enthusiastically shook my hand and regarded my Landrover. Landrover lovers are the same the world over it seems. He spoke no English and for some reason all my French escaped me. There was lots of smiling and ‘Oui Oui’ing. Then he left me his card and cheerfully drove off waving at me as far as he was visible.
Filling up at Lidl’s
On route to a town called Nevers I pulled in at Lidl’s and bought 15 litres of cheap veg oil. It’s nothing like as cheap as it used to be at 1.15 euro / litre but its still slightly cheaper than diesel and much better for the environment (if you ignore the manufacturing of the plastic bottles!). “je voudrais pomme de frittes” I lied to the cashier (“I like chips!”).
Found the campsite at Nevers. Its still raining so set up camp in a hurry. The campsite has Dutch owners and it seems mainly Dutch patrons. I decided to light the fire today. Not that it was cold, just that I wanted to actually use the log burner after I spent all that time building it, not to mention lugging it around the French countryside on my tow bar. Its a cold miserable 16 degrees outside and a toasty warm 20 degrees inside (thanks to my brother for the weather station).
Looking out my window I notice that Dutch people like to regard as well! Why don’t we do it in England? We just pretend not to notice!
Why I shouldn’t have parked under the trees
While at the campsite in Auxerre I noticed an army of bugs walking up the inside of the canvas in the camper. I do not know what these bugs are. I have never seen them before. Black, about the size of an earwig but fatter. They do not fly but just crawl around very slowly. They did not infiltrate the inner tent were I sleep so I did not worry about it. However only now do I realise just how tenacious the little buggars are. They are everywhere. I made toast and one of them had setup camp in my grill and ended up on my toast. I’ll be driving along and one would walk across the screen of my sat nav / phone. I even found a small colony sat on top my shelf regarding the inside of my vehicle.
Now the spiders... I hate spiders. The French spiders however seem almost comical. They are big and clumsy with big feet. One kept walking up the inside of the canvas while I was in bed thinking about stuff.. a bit like the Robert the Bruce. I didn’t want it in bed with me so I knocked it down to the ground. Clearly however he wanted to be in the bedroom where it was warm... so I had to knock him down again! Eventually he got the message and made his web half way up. It seemed we had an understanding.
Oh good news... my lunettes turned up!
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