24 April

Before I begin, there are two incidents which I omitted to mention from the past few days.
Th first was in Angers, just after I had parked the car, got the parking receipt and put it on the dash and was locking the car. A man in a light coat, leading a labrador, came up to me and started speaking rapidly in French. I replied, “Je parle Francais en petit peu” and he smoothly changed into English and said that he had parked his car, lost his wallet and didn’t have money for the fuel to drive home. Feeling sorry, I gave him €5, which is enough for about four litres of fuel. He said thank you in impeccable English and strolled off. I still wonder if I had been had by the most educated beggar in Angers.
The second was in Beaufort, where I had stopped to mail an envelope to England, asking a relative to drop postcards into a letterbox for me. I had written them up on the train from Gatwick, but because of the late arrival of the train and the early boarding call for the EuroStar, I hadn’t been able to find a place to post them (and other countries tend not to like accepting stamps from different countries). I had got that posted and was walking back to the car when a woman in a small car stopped as I was about to cross the road and started asking for directions in French. I said, “Pardon, je suis Australien; je visite” and she smoothly changed into well-spoken English and said, “You mean you don’t speak French” and drove off. I think she actually was English.
I awoke and prepared myself this morning to go down for breakfast at 7:30. When I got down I was asked which dink I wanted, and so I asked for thé, au lait, but forgot to add “froid lait”, so a few moments later a teapot and warm milk appeared in front of me.
I started eating and she sat down and had coffee and bread with me. The French habit appears to be to take a piece of bread, dunk it in the coffee and then chew it. It made me long so much for a chocolate ripple or a teddy bear. I saw a map on the wall, pointed out where I came from, where I had travelled and where I was going. Mine hostess said that one of her sons had been in Sydney for the Olympics, with a boat. I didn’t quite understand whether he had travelled there on a boat or had competed in a boat. Then she asked about Australia and I got the laptop and showed her pictures of Australia, the desert, Uluru, dry lakes and family. After that, she showed me a picture on the wall of her family – husband (deceased), six sons and their wives and children. As a result, I didn’t leave until nearly 9.
I had chosen a place which was inland, of a reasonable size and had what looked like interesting country all around it – Angouleme. I set the SatNav into action and headed off. It was about 11:30 when I had to stop, in a little town called Oulmet. First thing was the public toilets – very public, but I had no choice. Second thing was the smell from the local patisserie – again I had no choice. These French have given me an incurable addiction to baguettes. I had a can of Coke Zero (the inside of the car is cool enough that I can drink it) because I had passed recycling bins. I walked back and … you guessed it, recycling for paper, recycling for plastic but NOT for aluminium. Into the rubbish it went.
I headed out and decided that I should stop in an hour and finish the baguette. I pulled over into a rest area, with an information board. On a map of the region, with the roads ending with arrows and the name of the next town, someone with more ability to remember than sense had textad over all the names with “Rome” and then added, “All roads lead to Rome”. While eating, a little boy from a camper next to me (it looked like grandparents with a girl about ten and a boy about four) started playing peekaboo around their vehicle. When I left, he looked so sad I called him and the granfather over and gave him a kangaroo pin. I think the grandfather was more impressed than the child, but they did all wave enthusiastically as I left.
In the early afternoon (about 2, so I had to pay for parking) I arrived in the middle of Angouleme. When I say the middle, I MEAN the MIDDLE. The Tourist Information Centre was right in the centre of town. I circled the square a few times looking for a spot I could get into without trying to reverse park with about four hundred spectators – but ended up around the corner, where the window in a disused shop made it easy to get the car into a very small spot (and the car isn’t large, but with traffic behind, and so many watching and me still being unsure parallel parking on the wrong side, discretion was better). I took the directions from the SatNav for walking and found the centre was just around the corner instead of up the street. After getting the list of chambre d’hotes (try typing that and the spell corrector automatically fixes it, when I really want that spelling), I walked around the town for a little, seeing the suburbs from the citadel of the original town, some of the original town walls and a church. I realised it must be spring with love in the air as there were a few Durex dispensers on walls in the town. Then I headed out and found a Macca’s (with WiFi), got a drink and set up, but the security certificate from the McDonald’s supplier had expired and my laptop wasn’t going to connect until I accepted the new one – but I didn’t realise that until I had a number of fruitless attempts to connect. I got through, and did what I wanted, but took too long to do it.
Back in the car I looked at the available options. I selected likely ones on price, position and location (under €40 per night, fairly close to Angouleme but in a rural area). As luck would have it, the first one I rang was able to take me for four nights (so I can explore the region in different directions each day, and do so until late because I don’t have to worry about where to stay, and then head off on Monday to Bordeaux, and then south to Spain). I kept my fingers crossed because this was sight and reputation unseen, but so far each has been good in its own way and had far more advantages than disadvantages (Formule1 excluded). I found the town but had to get directions to find Chez Jambon. I got there and found it a pleasant room, one single and one double bed, with en suite and TV (though I think I have watched a total of ten hours while away, most in the US and none in England or here – I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms from “The Bill”!).
Once I had confirmed that I was staying for four nights and the time for breakfast, I headed off back to Angouleme. I had to fill the car with diesel (not really, but after one thousand kilometres and half a tank, according to the gauge, I wanted to choose where and when to do it, not have to do it at the last minute. I had seen a different supermarket, Carrefours (which means “crossroads”) opposite McDonald’s, so I went there. Filling up was a pleasant surprise – nearly sixty four miles per gallon from this tank and now just over fifty three miles per gallon overall (alright, for those of you who don’t know real quoted fuel consumption when you see it, the figures are 4.4 and 4.9 litres per hundred kilometres). I can only presume the car is run in now, as the fuel consumption seems to be plateauing.
Then I went into the supermarket. The first thing I should say is this one was different, being a shopping centre under the one roof (and I mean the one roof – it resembled a factory building [metal skin, skillion roof) with shops built inside, except the supermarket). A perfumerie caught my eye – Douglas – and I felt like buying something just to get the receipt. Then into the supermarket and prices here were reasonably good – most food was comparable to Australia or within twenty per cent, and goods were similar in price, given exchange (except my SatNav, which I got for $399 in Australia [and was around for $365] and here was €259 with France and €299 with Western Europe) rates. I resisted temptation (but may not if I visit there again) and left, setting the SatNav to take me directly here (I found it had Chez Jambon in memory).
I unpacked, moved things and me in, wrote up today, processed the photos and then called it quits for the evening.