Ebreuil to Murat...

The scenery is absolutely gorgeous in France. I’ve been to France a few times but mostly on ski trips so I’ve only ever seen the Alps. Driving through the countryside has been an absolute pleasure. We may be knackered and surviving on coffee and fags for me but the opportunity to see the country from the car rather than a window of a plane has been so brilliant.

We stopped at a café to pick up a coffee on route but the concept of takeaway coffee seems to be a bit lost here. The French appear to like to take their time over coffee rather than drinking it on the hoof as we have been. Still, we’ve found that waving our thermos travel mugs in the general direction of the car has been understood and we’ve managed, probably not as often as we’d like mind you!

The lunch stop today was at a lovely little place (that I can’t remember the name of) but there was a castle and a little French man who conversed to us in our pigeon French before we were met by two British ladies who were just out for lunch as they live there now. A nice life they said. We thought it was a good spot, mainly because it had a picnic table and loos but for some reason the boys all insist on pissing in the bushes. Sometimes I wish I was a boy… the toilet switched the lights off and flushed before I was halfway through taking a piss. Clearly the French piss quicker than the Scots!!

This shot is from a little place called Condat, the boys stopped for their final stop of the day and we gave them lukewarm coffee from the flasks that had been filled first thing… clearly not with boiling water. Bleurgh! Still… they were grateful for the tart… the French know how to make tart!

As we drove into Murat, we passed a huge Madonna (not the Vogue sort!) statue on the hill… it was the back end of it though so I’m not sure what the front looked like. It would appear there are a lot of religious sorts in France.
After the boys had their recovery drinks, their ice cold baths and their massages which so far I’ve managed to get out of doing, we went in search of dinner while Ary went for a run. It appears that by 9pm most of the French have retired for the evening. That’s surprised me a lot. Most of the places we’ve driven through don’t have so many people in sight and I wonder if a lot of places are holiday homes. I guess the higher we go, the more likely that will be the case. We did find a little restaurant in Murat, the only place that was open but they were very accommodating and the steak was delicious.

The wifi connections are also pretty dire, hence my tardy blipping. I think by the time all five of us finish dinner and tune into our laptops, between us we suck the life out of the wifi and it just doesn’t work for any of us! The things we take for granted… like duvets. What is with this blanket thing? I hate blankets on the beds. It’s just all sorts of wrong and the fact they’re all tucked in round the edges and you can’t actually move when you get in there really does make me uncomfortable. Please can I have a duvet and my own bed, with my boy in it?!

Still having trouble with the days... I think we're on Tuesday now - I'm blipping this from Barcelona and trying desperately to remember where we've been! I even have the maps out!! I've started writing notes each day cause if I don't, there's a good chance we'd be going backwards and I'm not sure the boys would appreciate that!