December 9th Ange

Today was another very cold and very wet day- the truck was dripping with condensation and our noses weren't fairing much better. We had wanted to stay put for a day or two somewhere instead of driving all the time but the weather was so gloomy, there was no power, and we were a reasonable distance form the village so we decided to move on in search of somewhere a little more conducive to having a quiet and warm rest.
We drove 15-20 kms to a small village where I spotted a McDonalds - we had been unable to find anywhere to check our emails for days and are worrying about getting the truck fixed before we can re-sell it. I went into McDs while the others set up warm activities in the truck, reading, doing the scrap-book, writing and maths. Well the first issue was that the power outlets all (except one broken one) had covers with hinges on them that prevented my NZ to French adapter to fit into the socket- so cursing away I decided to use the last few minutes of battery life on the computer to check my emails. Well lo and behold, the hard drive has crashed so the computer won't boot, now we can't check emails, blog, do internet banking, look at photos, save photos, contact anyone. GREAT!!!!!! I went back to the truck feeling pretty despondent to tell the truth. I think if we had been able to we may just have abandoned our plans and jumped on the next plane home at that point. It was cold and wet we felt isolated and it certainly wasn't a fun experience we were having. We decided to drive on to the only campsite we could find in the area which had power and see what happened with the weather. We had been going to visit Cheverney (a Chateau) on our way past but it was raining persistently and seemed foolish- so instead we headed straight to Mont-pres-Chambord. We drove through the village and eventually found the sign for the campsite so turned down the narrow road where the arrow was pointed. We found the place easily enough but the gates were firmly padlocked and apart from a solitary caravan with loose awning flapping in the wind and rain there was no sign of life. We didn't fancy our chances of finding anyone alive any time soon but chose to head back to a supermarket car-park on the outskirts of town we had noticed, and re-group while we had some lunch, hoping the campsite was just closed for lunch. The thought of hot food appealed so we purchased fresh bread and a hot chicken from the supermarket and feasted while the rain poured down around us. We made plans while we ate, we would go back to the campsite after lunch, if it was open, good, we;d give the weather a chance to clear and maybe explore the Loire over the next day or so if we couldn't stay at the campsite we would drive straight up to a campsite near where my cousin lives, an hour south of Paris and try to get the truck sorted out.
So, we drove back to the campsite, still resembling something from an American horror movie, with things blowing in the wind, and the area looking deserted, but then I remembered we had passed a handwritten sign with a drawing of a camper-van on it saying :accuiel campervans" so we tracked back to find the owner. Di risked life and limb to pass two large and ferocious marauding dogs  and we got the key to the padlock on the gate in exchange for my passport. The owner was on her way to pick the children up from school, so we got the Readers Digest introduction to the site. We settled in, really pleased to have power to charge the camera and computer in case it decided to come back to life.  The best part though is that we have lights so we can at least see what we are doing and do something more exciting than looking across the dimly lit table at each other.