Blog 1.28: Days 37 and 38

October 28th and 29th

The weather's not letting up any.

As I write, it's 7pm Friday, and it's still about 26 degrees and very, very humid.

It's nearly November for heaven's sake. Sort yourself out France.

I'm not complaining though as we really didn't come here for English weather, and certainly not the guaranteed rain that's forecast to 'enhance' tomorrow's Caldy vs Cov game several hundred miles north-west on the Wirral.

No thank you.

Don't tell 'im Pike! They seem to like their angling around here.

Today, then, was a fairly sweaty tab around Perigueux city centre, purchasing the odd gift, and the odd bottle of drink (soft, Agrume, one of our new favourites. Thanks for the introduction Rob), plus a lunch of baguettes with ham and cheese.

I say 'baguettes', but I think they were probably more likely to be listed in NATO's files as weapons of tooth destruction. Bugger, they were hard! I'd normally reckon to see off a roll of that size in a couple of minutes. These took about half an hour I reckon.

Nowt wrong with them at all to be fair, they just had exceedingly hard-baked crusts.

I counted my gnashers afterwards. All were present and correct, fortunately.

Big Kid

More pictures of more narrow streets and narrower alleys were taken, and that was enough for one day, so we wandered back 'home' for lots of fluids, and a pork and noodle mash-up à la Mandi.

And delicious it was too.

Tomorrow (Saturday the 28th) will see us sally forth once more in a north-westerly-ish direction, and I'll pick it up again there...

Saturday then, and we left Perigueux (I'll definitely look back fondly on this one though) by what felt like an extremely convoluted route, seemingly zig-zagging the city centre until we dropped back down to Dordogne level - but on the opposite bank and heading northwest.

It was a pleasant enough 70 or so miles through rolling countryside, replete with vines - Cognac country this time though.

We rolled into Rouillac in good time, and then spent about half an hour trying to gain access to the pay-Aire, the machine of which seemed to insist that we were already members, yet we were unable to satisfy it otherwise, while it continued to reject all attempts to pay. Happily, there was an English-speaking operative on the other end of the phone and he eventually managed to accept payment and raise the access barrier. The downside, though, is that the aforementioned machine had run out of access pass/membership cards meaning we couldn't use the showers - until a very kind gentleman called Bart, all the way from Bracknell and on the road to Valencia, lent us his. Thanks Bart.

Hopefully the access card issue will be addressed when we get home and we'll have unfettered access to this very comprehensive network of Aires when we return on our way back from southern Germany next summer.

This one, at least, is exceptionally pleasant, with very spacious grass pitches bounded by tall hedges, and there's access to all the usual facilities plus washing up etc area with very hot water.

Timely, as I was just about to run out of T shirts. The Chinese Laundry is in action again...

Having set up (including electric, in the price) we wandered into

Rouillac's Church and the Churchyard Well

Rouillac itself for a mooch. It's a pleasant enough place, but it's sad to see boulangeries closed, and boucheries boarded up. I'm not sure if it's down to covid or the fact that there's a big new Super U on the bypass road, or a combination of both.

It's the same everywhere though, n'est ce pas?

At least Super U sponsor the local rugby club

We'll have a couple of nights here though to relax, read, and let that laundry dry.

Mileage so far: 2587