Ho hum

With a boat ride on the Dordogne River booked for 10am, we surprisingly only left our accommodation a few minutes after the scheduled 7:45am slot. 

There were lots of single car width, two way roads with 80kmh speed limits. 

We did a walk in the hill overlooking the river, 

saw a tiny hummingbird (I never knew they were this small) ho ho hum and then I went with Annette and Jeremy on a one hour boat ride to see the cliff dwellings and town close up. Well worth a visit.

Next to Domme with its extremely narrow roads through the town for a quick look and lunch before the long trip home. 

It's hit 42 degrees today, so being in a car with air conditioning is ok by me.

Back home for packing and a new board game that I come last in before a very hot sleep.

Back to Bordeaux

At least this morning we knew that Carrefour was the place to be at breakfast. Same order as yesterday but the donut flavours may have changed. A side order of toilet paper for the 2 of us worried that the remaining 5 squares at the accommodation may not be enough. 

We picked up the car (it's been in a large storage garage since day 1), back to make use of the toilet paper purchase, jam pack the car and away we went. 

Only one stop planned, not far out of town. As well as waterfalls, I love a good lock Throw in an old bridge and we were once again on our way.

Emma slept until a Maccas 2 hours away, where we ate the remaining tonnes of food from last night, the editor had the fish burger, Emma made friends with the people in the next booth and also attempted to chew everything in sight (let's blame her new teeth).

McFlurrys to finish off and away we went. 

Next stop Bordeaux for a rest and a takeaway pizza night, while Australia got royally screwed (World Cup) by a referee who had once been convicted of match fixing. I couldn't watch, but saw some low lights.

What, no Boulangerie?

It's hot in France so today the plan is to get out and about early, head back for a sleep, prepare for a sleep and maybe have a sleep.

There is no food in our unit so first stop was a boulangerie, which of course is not a problem in France - except in Carcassonne. Plenty of butchers, but raw meat was not part of the plan. 

We headed for the local Carrefour hoping they would have something. Donuts and a flaky apple pastry would have to do. 

Jeremy loved the donuts (he had several) but couldn't bring himself to admit that a supermarket pastry was up to the standard of its more expensive counterpart at any French Boulangerie.

Little by little he is losing his Australian roots. All those Thursday nights sampling the donuts and cakes from Bakers Delight at Macarthur Square are a distant memory. 

From here we headed on foot and pram to La Cité to visit in the coolest part of the day. 

Quite a nice place, not always pram friendly, and a spectacular kebab meal for lunch (Emma had the fish baby food and half a banana).

She was missing her nap time and got a bit grumpy, so needed a good old fashioned carrying back home.

After her nap we went for a walk to buy ingredients for dinner and ended up with way too much food. A game or two of Canasta (we have learnt how to play) and off to another broken sleep by baby night.

The great dragonfruit swindle

With the prospect of markets before our midday train, we were up early to make sure we arrived at 8am. 

The "mainly food" markets where breakfast would be found seemed to have no food markets. No worries, as there would be a boulangerie somewhere. Luckily we found one, selected our pastry of choice and found a park bench in the only part of town that we hadn't seen yesterday. 

The body is a bit confused eating a single pastry for breakfast. How would it survive without the "hash browns special" from previous weeks?

Fueled up, we started the long walk through the markets. Hundreds of stalls that lined the street in front of us. Walking and walking slowly, we managed to get through unscathed, apart from the obligatory tea towel purchase that accompanies any holiday. Finally, the long lines of toys and clothes and records ended.

To amuse myself, I have now begun to count the number of records that I have at home while flicking through the LPs section that most markets have. Today it was 4, including an album I purchased last holidays in Europe and a Demis Roussos album. 

You remember Demis? He used to be on the Don Lane show a lot. You remember Don Lane? I better stop here as I imagine the answer is negative.

Miraculously, when the "various stuff" markets finished, we found the food markets, which also stretched forever. In fact, with time running out before departure, we didn't manage to finish.

Vietnamese noodles and salad, plus cherries, we purchased for our train trip.

Back home we went to heat up our noodles, eat an ice cream, struggle with suitcases on the stairs and finally walk the 1km to the train station.

The train was almost on time, we managed to find some spare luggage space and a comfortable trip was completed to Carcassone, where Jeremy was to meet us and spend a few days before we left for home.

The bonus was he had Emma with him. Babies and Editors do not travel lightly so I did the right thing and nominated to travel in the luggage compartment.

With check in not ready, we headed to Maccas where the brand new dragonfruit Sprite was recommended. Yuck. I was duped. It tasted like artificial sweetener. 

I've been to some towns with tiny streets but fitting the wide EV through these streets was an effort.

Accommodation found, Emma rested, crepes for dinner, a random World Cup game watched and it was bed time. Unfortunately, a 10 month old baby in a different bed and teething is not the best recipe for a great night's sleep, but the positives outweigh the negatives as she inches slowly from being a bundle of crawling energy to one who is very close to walking.

Our accommodation is nice but every now and then there is a wafting of, depending on your nose, a smell of cigarettes, BO, wet dog, or mould in the air. Turns out it's my towel waiting to dry me.

A better day

Today was about walking around, buying some some stuff, taking some pics and not getting angry in A Vietnamese restaurant.

3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Arles is a pretty nice town. Lots of Roman ruins, old buildings, art, flowers and food. (Ed. Van Gogh painted a lot of scenes here, which are indicated on signs).

First stop after showering off the residual heat from last night's "sleep", was a boulangerie (translation: French bakery).

Croissant for the Editor and pizza slice for me. I'm liking this place.

We walked, bought stuff that would definitely suit the new house (a metal hook shaped like a chilli) and an icy cold bottle of Coke that the Triple M black thunders of the 80's would have been proud to give away (it cost euro 2.50).

We walked, no stress, found where lunch would be eaten and then walked more before returning to Le Vietnam restaurant.

Seated in front of a welcome fan, I chose the pho and the Editor Plate 6. 

First up they didn't have any pho. It's 12:20. Where the hell did it go? So I chose the Saigon Soup (also pho).

What is the intrinsic difference between Plate 6 and the many other Plate numbers on offer?

Well Dear reader, Plate 6 had FRESH spring rolls, not FRIED.

Unfortunately this was not a fact that the chef was aware of, so when fried spring rolls arrived, you could cut the tension with the red chop sticks waiting on the table.

The waiter looked Vietnamese, probably spoke Vietnamese and French, and maybe spoke (without understanding), some goodly English.

The Editor, despite daily French lessons on Duo Lingo, did not know how to say "you @@@#ed up my order" when her Plate 6 turned up totally fried.

As I sipped my substitute pho, trying to eat slowly, the back and forth between waiter and Editor went on.

It was finally settled when she pointed to the word Fresh on the menu, got him to admit that fresh meant wrapped in rice paper and as he took her plate 6 away said that she "just didn't want everything fried".

What turned up next?

That's right, a fresh spring roll, minus the rest of plate 6's contents of salad, prawn things and other prawn things.

I had finished lunch by now. Why did I not video?

Then some minutes later, by some miracle, Plate 6, as advertised, had arrived.

I tried to sleep as she ate. Aren't holidays fun?

We headed back to the room exhausted by the day, got the aircon to actually spit out cold air and had a good sleep for an hour or 2. Where was this cold air last night?

Fresh from our Nana nap in our house,

we went in search of food to cook for dinner, and after a failed attempt in some sort of hippy whole foods place, found a real supermarket (where Pepsi and chips are sold).

We cooked and ate, used the wifi to catch up on Youtube on Aussie shows we had missed and slept in the chilly 19 degrees of the now working aircon (it was the batteries' fault last night).