We headed away from Vouvray along the Loire Valley some more, this time headed to Chenonceau another magnificent Chateau, on our way to Ange a campsite with power a rare commodity in this part of France especially at this time of year.
Chenonceau is built astride the Cher River (a tributary of the Loire) in fact during WWII one door opened onto or from (depending on whether you were coming or going) Occupied France and the other door opened into a Resistance stronghold. The Chateau itself was turned into a hosputal for the wounded during the war at the owner's behest and in fact the Resistance managed to get a lot of people out to safety through the chateau because of this. Apparently the German artillary had it in their sights the whole time but for some reason didn't ever attack it, whether there were German wounded being treated too I;m not sure, but it was unharmed.
The castle, like all of them, had an interesting past. It was given to Diane de Poitiers by her lover King Henry II who was married to Catherine de Medici at the time. Diane had quite good taste and sorted out the gardens and decorating etc. and lived there until a couple of years after Henry's death at which point Catherine succeeded in ousting her from the Chatequ (don't worry she didn't end up destitute and homeless begging outside churches in France, she had any chateau of her own and went and lived in one of them.)
The Chateau was fantastic enough as it was but it was even more memorable because it had been decorated for Christmas with wonderful trees, baubles, lights and superb, huge bouquets of fresh flowers - reddish brown hippiastrumsm red and green floral displays, purple and white and green, each more glorious than the last, The piece de resistance however was the huge fires raging in giant alcoves with logs as thick as Piri Weepu's thigh.
The grounds also held an interesting vegetable garden with peculiar if not a little rude displays of pumpkins and gourd type vegetables laid out, I'm not sure if for decoration or if they rot them for compost - but they were a sight.Also next to the vegetable garden was the donkey field with 4 contented looking donkeys munching grass, but not keen to come to see us. There was also a 17th century farm - much of it closed for winter but sitting in aan enclosure with lots of food and a clean pond were a selection of about 12 colourful and sometimes oddly shaped ducks - at least 2 of each type so they had a friend who spoke the same dialect.
We left Chenonceau headed towards Ange - it started raining (of course) and was quite dark when we pulled into the smallish village. Just as we were finding signs leading us to our camp-stop one of our windscreen wipers fell part. GREAT another pain to cause angst just when we didn't need it. However, thankfully it was the outside one on the passenger;s side so though it reduces vision a little, it isn't too bad as there are still two functioning wiper blades which cover most of the screen.
We pulled up to our spot, reversed in and put in chocks, wound down our stabilizing legs, hooked up to the power and sat down in fully illuminated surroundings, hot water cylinder turned on for warmth, and counting our blessings. We had dinner and did the dishes, I was just trying to make a cup of post-dinner tea when they electric jug wouldn't work. Oh........!!!! (Found that exclamation mark) What now? I checked the fuses in the box, often when you boil the jug at these places it flips the szitch on the fuses as it is too much of a load. But no it wasn't that. I moved the plug to another bollard hoping that would fix it. No. It wasn't that. I asked Di (because I'm too shy) to ask the English people one camper over if they had a problem just to make sure it wasn't isolated to us. She reluctantly agreed. It wasn't us thankfully, but it also couldn't be fixed that night so, bother it, we had to reduce our usage of electricity - not quite to the point of dimness, but not the nice bright light that allows for stitching and other occupations that old eyes need good lighting for. It really does feel as if things aren't meant to be smooth at the moment - things at home aren't great with our rental properties still not being able to be rented post-earthquake which places a huge financial burden on us, our mastercards aren't working, the truck needs fixing before we can sell it, we can;t communicate or find out what is happening because the computer has crashed. All our clothes stink because we can't find a laundromat, most of the places for campervans are closed or have their electricity and water turned off for winter, and it's just started raining again (heavily). I've got to the point where I just want to come back to NZ (earthquakes or not) and be playing in my warm garden and enjoying sunshine and good friends.
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