Jeurre

10.8.11 Jeurre

We woke to blue, blue skies and the sun slowly making its way up the deep bush and rock clad valley. We decided to stay here at our quiet little camping spot, do some chores and chill out.

We did hair washing, clothes washing, put our sheets and bedding out in the sun.. and tidied up the van. Diana and Hilary did some of the book, we had a cruisey lunch and then I fell asleep in the sun and Hilary read for hours.

At one point the owner came over and started looking with horror at our laundry and started gabbling frenetically in French. We had told her the evening before we didn’t speak French but that didn’t stop her. She went on and on, gesturing at our washing, waving her arms around, frowning, gabbling continuously. We think she thought it was a bit much, so we reduced our footage of line and took our sheets and towels down. She stopped going on eventually, either we got her complaint right or else she ran out of breath, though I suspect for her, the latter never occurs. They really are an uptight lot these Europeans, they need to chill out a bit. There was no one around but us, and her (when she got back from her shopping or whatever) and I’m not sure really what the problem was other than it was not what “usually” happened. I guess it’s a bit like Pegasus town in Canterbury where you aren’t allowed your washing outside because it looks unsightly!!!

So we had a very quiet afternoon, reading, sleeping, doing the book, sitting in the sun, drinking beer/cider/lemonade/tea….. eating a few chips every now and then, getting over sunned (Hilary and me), Di was inside doing the book. In fact Hilary and I get areas of over-cooked on our faces/arms, but thankfully Frau Uptight had an aloe vera plant growing in a pot on the wall and so we have harvested bits of that. A wonderful salve to our redness. In fact I have a piece sitting on my little finger now as I sit at the picnic table, typing way in the sun, because this morning while making pancakes and bacon for breakfast I inadvertently cooked my finger. The aloe is amazingly soothing, I just hope it works for the scalding/scolding we’ll get when Frau Uptight sees the missing points from her plant!!!!!!

Last night after dinner (yummy wraps with delicious salady things and Mexican style beef) we did a wee bit more of the book and then played 500 late into the night. We are still in Juerre which is a little town (well we think it is, we have stopped nearby) not too far from the Swiss border, in France near the alps. It is gloriously sunny again today so we are having another day in the sun, catching up on blog and book, sunshine and rest. Sometime we’ll head directly south to the French southern coast and then along to Spain. It is still a couple of days travel way, we only do about 300kms maximum a day as otherwise it gets very tiring and pointless, especially as we usually avoid motorways and take more narrow and windy routes.