Friday 18 September 2015

Holiday in France - Days 5 to 8

Wednesday 9th September - At Bouysse de Caudon
Enjoyed Croissants and Pains au Raisins for breakfast. Did a bit of tidying up in Morag. We walked up a footpath to Montfort for lunch. The path was quite steep in places. We had a beer at a café/bar in Montfort then lunch, Menu de Terroir, at another restaurant. It was a very good lunch. We walked back down to the campsite. By now it was very hot and Button had a good swim in the river to cool off.
Montfort village and castle
The Cingle de Montfort from the village
 
Interesting rocks at Montfort

Button cooling off

We sat outside and had a cold drink and I had a short siesta. Later ewe each had a G&T and I got the wifi password from reception and I posted the blog entries for the first four days.

Thursday 10th September - On to Cahors
After breakfast we packed up and left for Cahors. We stopped near Gourdon to give Button her walk. We found a nice path through woodland near to the Plan d'Eau. The path followed a "Parcours Sportif" (Trim Trail). Needless to say we didn't do all the exercises - or any of the exercises!
We parked in the centre of Cahors and walked to find a restaurant for lunch. We sat at a pleasant pavement café sheltered from the sun by trees trained over a trellis. The meal was ok, but the service was terrible - even by French standards!
We returned to Morag to leave for the campsite but she wouldn't start! The immobiliser wouldn't recognise either of our keys. After several attempts and several minutes of panic We rang Ray at Cara in Stoke where we bought Morag. He advised that we might need the keys re-programmed. We were wondering where we were going to find a Peugeot dealer to help when Ray rang back to suggest that if we hadn't activated the 90 day breakdown cover that we were given when we bought Morag that might help and gave us the relevant contact information. I decided to have one last try before contacting them and, wonderfully, she started!
We decided that we would complete our journey down to our friends Mostyn and Christine in Languedoc but had to stop to top up with fuel. Morag started fine after the fuel stop so we changed our mind and looked for a nearby campsite. We found one near Montricoux. The site was nearly empty but we were allocated a pitch and were happy to stop for the night. G&Ts and Pasta and cheese lifted our spirits.
Our pitch at Montrocoux

Friday 11th September - Languedoc at last
After breakfast we were pleased that Morag started without difficulty and decided it must have been a glitch and all was now well.We continued on our journey south, stopping to give Button a walk along the Voie Vert, a disused railway line, between Albi and Castres.
We had lunch in the garden of a hotel in Réalmont. It was a nice lunch and very reasonably priced but the waiter obviously didn't enjoy his job and didn't smile once - not even to his French diners!
We continued our journey via Mazamet and St Pons, now in familiar territory near where we lived in France.We reached Mostyn and Christine's house in Boubals just after 5 pm, set up Morag in their garden and joined them for our evening meal,
Saturday 12th September - NOT a glitch!
We had pre-booked a hire car in Béziers for the week and went to collect it today. The weather had broken with heavy thunder storms during the night continuing through the day. At times the rain was absolutely torrential. Mostyn had offered to take us down to Béziers to collect the hire car but as Button is quite upset by thunder we decided to take her with us in Morag.
We completed the formalities for the car hire and were about to leave with Lyn bringing Morag (and Button) back but once again Morag refused to start! We tried several times but the immobiliser again failed to recognise either key. As the hire place was to close at midday we asked if we could leave Morag there until Monday when we would be able to contact a garage for help. We piled as much of the contents onto the back seat of the hire car and Button into the boot.
Our friends Joy and David offered to put us up for a couple of days so we drove to their house in Hérépian. Button was delighted to see Joy and her doggy friend Régis again. They played like puppies as they had five years ago.
We had arranged to go to one of our favourite restaurants for dinner with more friends, Sue and Andy. The restaurant "Auberge de Gorges de Madale", has a truly inventive chef. The 6 course meal, aperitif, unlimited red and white wine, coffee and muscat with the dessert costs only €30. The entrée was particularly impressive with a ring of sliced champignons de Paris arranged on a tomato coulis base surrounding a forest of tiny oriental mushrooms served alongside a savoury cauliflower icecream on abed of crisp fried Girolles! After a superb meal we drove Sue and Andy home and returned to David and Joy for the night.

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