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| 15 minutes after arriving at our housesit in the Dordogne |
The cats, 4 year old William and beautiful young Miel, who has only been here about 6 weeks, are still trying to establish their positions in the house, so there is the odd scrap though we have had them on the bed together and on our laps at the same time. They are however both very cuddly and affectionate, we had one each on a lap within about 15 minutes of arriving, bringing stuff in and settling down.
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| Free Aire campsite in Roquecor (44°19'23.4"N 0°56'39.8"E) |
We popped in on Friday to be introduced to the house, cats and Louise which was great. We then went about 5 minutes up the road to Roquecor a nearby village with a little Aire (Location and grid reference: 44°19'23.4"N 0°56'39.8"E). What a lovely village, it’s pretty has a couple of bars and a village shop, a good mix of French people with a population of British people, not to mention a charity shop for cat welfare!
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| Lunch at the Cafe Central, Roquecor |
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| At our lunchtime table in Roquecor and, in the square the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protest over fuel price rises French style. They've got red and white tape up high blocking roads into the square for high vehicles and are sitting in the sun at a table full of wine and lunch from the cafe. It's all very good humoured and, as far as we saw, no-one was put out (but we understand it has been very different elsewhere) |
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| One of the neolithic caves at Roc de Nobis |
Due to this we made sure we filled up with diesel, with LPG for our boiler (with assistance from a lovely garage forecourt man, yes he was only doing his job, but he whisked bollards out, directed us in and showed us how to use the nozzle which is different from in the UK all with a smile) and found somewhere local to our destination.
Saturday, after some odd jobs in the van and a lovely chat with a local lady, we went to the cafe in the square for our first lunch out. We were surprised to find that all the roads into the square had ‘no entry’ tape across them and there was a group of people, wearing the yellow jackets of this demonstration, sitting at a table in the middle of the square. Interestingly we could have driven into and out of the car park we were in without encountering them at all, but they did have a presence, good humoured, but there. When a delivery truck turned up to the little shop, the tape caught round his chiller unit, they were quickly there to release it so preventing damage to either truck or tape. The driver then came into the restaurant for his lunch, so whether he actually went about his delivery business we don’t know!
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| The Roc de Nobis caves beneath Rocequor |
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| Rocequor perched high on a cliff |
Anyway we, along with half a dozen other groups, sat outside in the sunshine having a lovely lunch, with a very pleasant glass of wine.
Sunday we visited the cat shop, to find it manned by Jenny, the lady we’d had our long chat with on Saturday, we also discovered that Louise our homeowner also volunteered there. I guess everyone does know everyone, even the waitress in the cafe knew about us as Louise had mentioned us the previous week! The market wasn’t really worth the bother, but I think it’s more impressive in the summer. We also walked round the Roc de Nobis, another set of previously inhabited caves though these had been beautifully landscaped and gardened by Jenny’s neighbour.
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| Big Ted parked up at our housesit. |
Back to Ted for domestic chores, not just the usual emptying of grey water and toilet cassette, but fresh water and, for the first time, draining of the boiler. It has a frost sensor on it, so if the temperature drops below about 3degrees it drains all the water to prevent damage. The forecast was for cold, so we thought it only sensible. As ever it read like something really complicated, though realistically we knew it couldn’t be. The hardest thing was starting the water draining, don’t know why it wouldn’t, or how we started it, but eventually we did. It does all seem a bit odd though, we can run the boiler for heat without water in, so can heat the locker to the required 7 degrees to allow the reset button to be pushed in, but can’t turn the water pump on as this will immediately fill the boiler, so there is no water for toilet flushing or anything else.
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| Miel and William cats asleep on us. I think we're accepted! |
We then popped to ‘The Grand Bazaar’ a charity sale being organised a little further up the road by Charles, Louise’s boyfriend. We went in looking for a book on card games, as we sat in the van the other night realising we couldn’t remember the rules to anything! It’s not often you find exactly what you are looking for, though I do think it’s the same book that is probably on Mother’s bookshelf! Having been introduced to all and sundry, we took ourselves off to the sit and let ourselves in. Louise popped in to get her suitcase before heading off to the airport and an overnight hotel, rather than doing it in the early morning as she was going to go along little backroads to avoid the blockades.
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| Our housesit village. Big Ted is in this photo, but in case you can't see him.... |
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| A zoomed in view. He's in dead centre in front of the church, partly hidden by a tree |
And here we are, chilling with the pussycats, we’ve had a couple of walks and cycled into the nearest town to the supermarket. Roasted a chicken, something I can’t do in Ted, well I can, but the oven is so small it’s either roast chicken, or roast potatoes and veggies, there is no space for both! We’ve caught up on Strictly come dancing and this afternoons task is to inventory our food boxes... we are loving it.
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| William cat chilling out |
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| Miel cat wondering if French onion soup with croutons is something she might like |
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