Non, je ne mange pas chien (to the tune of 'non, je ne regrette rien')

Harry & Monty

It's Friday night and the van lights are low.  Harry is inside, watching something on his phone.  He is going to sleep in the van tonight.  We haven't fallen out.  He says he won't be able to sleep for fear of someone breaking into the van overnight.  

We are somewhere about half an hour's drive south from Bordeaux.  Donkey Monty (my new nickname for the van) behaved himself today.  After a gentle start this morning, which included sending a link to this blog to you all, I called the breakdown company again.  I quite like chasing things up with them because every time I call something actually gets done.  This time they told me the van had been checked and no faults could be found and they could arrange a taxi for us to go and fetch it from Le Mans.  I was a little sceptical about the lack of a diagnosis and so the operator agreed to speak to the garage again.  The only information we have is that it test-drove fine, it was weighed and came in at 3450kg (I think the limit is meant to be 3.5 tonnes) and that there was nothing more to be done and we should go and collect it.  So after another sweet walk to the village green area and back, we rushed to pack up the few things we had as the taxi had come early.  He added to the rush by saying the garage closed soon for lunch (of course, this is France!).  This driver was neither friendly nor unfriendly.  He was probably in his late fifties or early sixties and had grey crewcut hair.  He didn't say a word the whole journey and as he had the look of someone who works for the mafia, I kept schtum even though I really needed the air-con turned up or a window to be opened.

At the garage I tried to see if I could get some idea of why Donkey Monty de La Mancha had bolted on us.  There were no mechanics by the time we arrived so the receptionist passed on the information.  Nothing new.  No diagnosis, no problem but ooh la la the van came in at a heavy weight (accompanied by the French wrist and hand shaking gesture).  We stuffed the various bags and belongings we had back into the van and set off.  We had nowhere to stay so I suggested we pull over and find somewhere on Airbnb.  "No!  Let's just get out of here!"  OK, Harry, let's go.  I knew we needed to pass through Bordeaux so I set this on Google maps on my phone (which dangles from a recess in the central portion of the dashboard by its cover, jammed in with the service book cover) and gently coaxed Monty out of Le Mans and back on to the open road.

The only thing Harry and I could come up with was that we both had our phones charging from Monty's battery when he went down and still the battery light showed at startup.  So no phone charging today and Monty made it all the way.  I think it was over five hours of driving, mostly on the motorways.  I decided to go easy and not drive at 80mph and not put my foot to the floor when we crawled up motorway inclines but rather let Monty plod at his own pace.

We stopped earlier on in the journey than I had anticipated, topped up with diesel (very expensive), food, water, and looked for somewhere to stay the night.  Our tactic involves overshooting the next major city we would normally stop at so we are in a smaller, quieter place where we are more likely to be able to park the van without difficulty as well as walk Ichiro.  The place I found offered a room in a large house.  It all looked very good and there was even a swimming pool (which I didn't imagine having time to use).

The traffic around Bordeaux was awful.  I don't know if it was Friday evening get-me-out-of-here traffic or something else but it was busy.  I've been spoilt with automatic cars for the last few years so suddenly being back to pumping my left foot over and over again in slow-moving traffic is causing some cramps.  Once we got past Bordeaux and off the motorway (51 bloody euros the toll road was.  I couldn't believe it) we were suddenly in a very different landscape.  We had left Northern Europe behind.  The vegetation and light told us we were heading south.  We stopped off at a supermarket and whilst Harry let Ichiro stretch his legs, I went inside and got us dinner.  The area around here is so very quaint.  Like nothing I've seen before.  Often the road gets divided up into single lanes with patches of plants separating the two sides of the road.  It's road calming by making you feel calm.

Our host had warned us that GPS would take us too far down the road but between us we couldn't easily decode her instructions so we went too far down the road.  The estate we were in felt a bit like a trailer park but with houses instead of trailers.  When we found the side-turning down to the house mumbles started to emerge from Harry.  These grew into grumbles as we were met by two barking dogs on the loose.  Harry loves dogs (usually more than humans) but he is very wary of any dog he doesn't know, especially in the countryside.  He is also worried about a dog attacking Ichiro who is now too old to defend himself.  The two dogs kept running around the van making it very difficult for me to drive ahead.  A lady in the open area seemed unmotivated to call the dogs off or intervene but eventually she wandered over.  She wasn't the hostess but she knew we had come to stay in 'the room'.  I called the hostess from my phone and she put me on to her brother who spoke English who was going to put his niece onto us.  His niece was already there by the time I finished the call and she assured us the dogs were kind and it was ok to get out the van.  When I looked over at the first lady's accommodation I could see it was a large, covered veranda with a caravan stuck on to the back of it.  It seemed that we were in a trailer park of sorts after all.  The niece showed us to the room.  The whole experience was slightly surreal and I felt like I was back in India.  We entered the room through its external sliding doors; there was a small fridge and microwave in the room; here is the toilet, and down the corridor, here is the bathroom.  The niece kindly brought me a bowl for the dog's water and coincidentally it was identical in material and shape to the bowl we'd used at the last place.  The garden is peppered with banana plants and everything feels makeshift and permanent at the same time.  I found it amusing that in the bathroom was a dish rack with washing liquid, a sponge and tea towel all provided.  Everything had been thought of and nothing had been thought of.

We were accompanied by mosquitos and the black, larger of the two dogs for dinner.  Despite the initial fear of this unknown dog, Harry quickly made best friends with him feeding him bits of chicken, and petting and cuddling him.  Ichiro never ceases to be a source of hilarity.  He is a picky and fussy eater often munching half-heartedly as though eating is an activity below him.  When he saw Harry feeding the other dog, he ran to his bowl and wolfed everything down as though his life depended on it.  Oh, Ichiro.  You're such a nincompoop.

Several times on the journey, and again over dinner, I asked Harry to think about where I might be able to get clean clothes from inside the Tardis that is the van.  Let me think, he would say.  After dinner he slunk off to bring back clean goodies whilst I did the washing up in the bathroom sink with a smile on my face.  When I got back to the bedroom, Harry stood outside the sliding doors holding up a pair of black synthetic boxer shorts that has lost their elasticity.  "This is all I could find."  Great.  So now my new wardrobe for the next two or three days consists of a clean but ill-fitting pair of someone else's underwear and the same tracksuit bottoms and shirt I've been wearing for days.  "There's no way I can get any other clothes out.  I'd have to unload the whole van to get to them."  Sweet Jesus.

Tomorrow we will head towards Salamanca.  We could make it to our final destination in two days if I can manage six or more hours of driving a day.  Harry regularly offers to drive but given that he wouldn't drive on the motorways in the UK out of fear of motorways, I'm not sure driving on the other side of the road, still on motorways, is the best idea.