Signs of Life in Coulon

After a very lazy morning we ambled down to the throbbing metropolis of Coulon....aha it was open.

Still very few people about ...

And even less on the side streets ... 

We were exhausted from the hustle and bustle of it all, so we popped into a local hostelry.  Unfortunately the only thing I know what to order in French is 'frites' - so that is what we had!  Chips and beer .... mmmmm!  I hate to say it, but I have a hankering for a 'Spoons Sunday Roast! 

It was quite hot when the sun made an appearance on the way down, so we dunked the dogs in the canal to cool them off.  Then, after we had sat for a while, the wind got up and got a bit chilly and they started to shiver .. poor boys had to have a cuddle to warm them up! 

Then the sun came out again for our walk home ...very changeable weather!

Here is a pretty street - still no-one in it though ... 

We saw the 'punter chick' of this craft arrive for duty on her super dooper pushbike ... she then punted round a large group of large people she must keep very fit!  

By now the place was heaving, at one restaurant we counted six customers!

We spotted this lovely house on the way back too ... yours for 375,000 Euro's

Then we got back to camp and parked our derrieres for a while, watching the weather change over and over! 

I was hoping that there would be a lively bar in town to watch the footy, but no chance of that.

Tomorrow we will move on to try and find somewhere a bit more lively to watch the World Cup final and to celebrate Bastille Day on Monday with our French brothers.

Finally Escaped The Rain

At last a rain-free night, but still cold !  

This morning we drove to the centre of the local village to get some basic supplies of bread, milk and, of course, wine!

Geoffrey was in an agile mood checking out the passing scenery ...

This is his 'good' side ... you don't want to see his 'bad' side !!

No parking restrictions in the village square ...

We had to fill with fuel and what a price!  It was 1.19 Euro a litre, that is under a pound a litre!  This is the cheapest we have found, even cheaper than Portugal ...

We are still heading across to the west coast of France, but today we bisected the route we travelled down ten weeks ago ...

We are the little red arrow ... Autoroute (plus a GPS) is magic, a great bit of kit ...

We passed loads of fields full of sunflowers ...

We decided on a campsite for a couple of nights, to catch up on washing and ... showering!!  So, we pulled into a campsite at Coulon, which is a very quiet site with not many campers.  We thought that we may have problems being that it is a long weekend in France.  There is also an amazing Aire just down the road, which they charge just 7.50 Euros a night, but we really wanted some power, washing machines and good showers!

We got settled in and put the boys out on 'their' recliners but Bombo didn't notice a herd of cows behind him.....

Hmmm, what can I smell ...

What the ?

Having accomplished our washing and hoovering, we went for an early evening walk down to the village centre,  which was about a mile away.  We walked along with a Scottish couple and their standard poodles for a while, so we had a quick chat with them and got the low down about where to go in Scotland when we get up there in the van in a couple of months!  Then we left them and walked along the towpath of a river/canal to the town itself.

There were some superb old waterside houses along the way - and look, the sun came back ...

We get some big insects in Oz, but check out this fella!

We finally reached the village, which was lovely, but absolutely dead!  It's Friday night (of a long weekend) and I couldn't find a bar open ...

There were lots of punts waiting for tomorrow's customers ...

Where are you all?

Nice shop ...

The Tricolour ...

It is a lovely place but too quiet!  

We will go for a walk down there in the morning to check it out again!

And we finish up with more nice houses on the way back to the campsite,  You can also see a chap who had just left his house, punting his way across the river ...

It is a place of punts ... there being a lot of them all along the river/canal.  Apparently they call it a 'green Venice'.

This was a new house, very nice though ...

and to finish with, El's 'arty' shot across the canal / river ... (must find out what it actually is!)