November 29th

29^th November.  St Cyprien to Saint Laurent sur Gorre

Fog shrouded the village of St Cyprien again this morning and filling the truck with water bottle full by bottle full because our hose couldn’t attach to the freshwater outlet, was taxing indeed. I had the truck idling as I worked to try to warm up the interior and disperse some of the condensation before our journey began, so the burnt diesel fumes combined with the wet air to try to cause my end. I survived however, and once the others came back from the patisserie with fresh bread and a few tasty looking morsels, we hit the road, in a now warm truck. As we climbed out of the valley and through other villages and forest lined roads to the north we broke through the fog to a stunning sunny day, and we were soon shedding layers and marvelling at our good fortune.  To tell you the truth actually and let you into a secret I’m not sure I have shared before, Hilary has 2 main companions on this journey of ours. She has Lambie, who many of you will know, who she has had since pre-birth, given to us by a friend  at a baby shower. Lambie has lived through many experiences, and like Hilary is a world traveller. He has been to Australia at least twice, Malaysia, and the UK and Europe three times. He has been reborn or even reincarnated almost at various times, we like to tell the story of him losing his head in an Irish pub when we were in Ireland with my mum in 2005, and he has been reinvented and re -sewn so many times that I’m not sure any of him is his original self, but he has always maintained a link with his past. Lambie is part of our family. The other character is Osh Kosh, who is a bear of similar stature as the original Lambie, in fact he was bought about 5 years ago as a substitute for Lambie who was no more than a rag by then. Osh Kosh didn’t ever curry the same favour as Lambie, was begrudgingly taken to bed if lambie couldn’t be found after extensive searching, but was really a very poor cousin. Hilary, when we were planning for this journey was told she had to only bring two “friends” and a couple of small toys, (as we had to fit everything into a pack each, which we would have to carry some distance). She chose Lambie (of course, as I said he is family), and OshKosh and a few Schleich (brand name) lions. 

Well since we have been on tour, OshKosh has gained a great deal of character (Lambie always had it), but amongst other things, like going to the pub while we are all asleep, and arriving home in no fit state, and using the occasional rude word, OshKosh’s primary claim to fame and role is that of weather man. He doesn’t forecast the weather mind, we have a machine on the wall that does that, he creates the weather, so it is OshKosh to whom we turn when the weather is bad, and ask for help. Diana and I think OshKosh does pretty well, however Hilary is convinced that whenever the weather has a change to the good, Lambie has had a hand in it, if it is inclement, OshKosh is in sole command.  So to get back to our trip from St Cyprien, in actual fact we weren’t thanking our good fortune for the gorgeous weather, but heaping praise on OshKosh. As I said to Diana a day or so ago, when she returned from the shower with Hilary, “If anyone had seen me in here (the truck) they would have been quite concerned, as I was extolling out loud to a bear head with blue velvet skirt, to take the clouds away and bring some sun”. She agreed, but understood completely.  Strange things happen when you live in very close proximity to two other people (even if they are loved ones) for an extended period.

We hadn’t intended stopping on our journey to Saint Laurent sur Gorre as it was only about 160kms and we could have made it easily before lunch, however, after only 14kms we were bewitched by a pretty little village, beside a river, shining in the sunlight, and with a full blown market in progress. I found a park for the truck while the others started browsing, I caught up with them at a cane basket stall where the vendor was in full flight explaining about the quality of his products and rapidly dropping the price to try to make a deal. They were beautiful, and would have been very functional, especially for going to the market and buying fruit and vegetables, cheese and other products each week, however, highly impractical when you think about getting them home, and more so when you wonder what the MAF people might say at the NZ border. So despite the fair price and beautiful wares, we left there empty handed. I went to a couple of fresh vegetable stalls and chose a few things like parsley, a parsnip, a broccoflower,  a few carrots and some green beans, I have got the etiquette of market shopping sussed I think. Some places you point to what you want as the vendor doesn’t want you touching it, but at other places you are allowed to choose your own. I observed the locals, and realised this was a “touch it yourself” situation and so acted accordingly. 

We walked a little further and were accosted by a woman selling her sheep’s milk cheeses. She held out samples which we willingly tasted as she chatted to us in excellent English. I don’t usually like blue cheese, but being in a different land, thought I would sample the local product (isn’t that a big part of being in foreign places?), and to my surprise discovered I really liked it. We also sampled the plain cheese which got a thumbs up from all of us, and a sweet chilli cheese which also met with approval from all of us. So we asked for a small wedge of each. When she said, that’s 1.2kgs of cheese (as she looked at the scales) I became a little nervous, but when she asked for €55 I decided that pride could take a fall, and told her we could not afford that (over $100). So we took the plain and blue cheese (still 30 plus euros worth) and mumbling “pardons” repeatedly, beat a hasty retreat.

We needed a coffee after that, so stopped at a small bar/café and snuggled inside beside the heater drinking cups of hot coffee and feeling relieved that we weren’t having to sell ourselves to finance our cheese habit.

We stopped at a wine stall on our way back to the truck and picked up a half bottle (a whole bottle but half the usual volume) of a local red wine (Bergerac, a local village but also reminds me of that smooth gorgeous John Nettles on the t.v. ).

By now of course it was lunchtime so we had some of our new cheese with fresh bread, avocado, pate and hot pumpkin soup, before making our way back on to the main drag and moving north.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, just a smooth ride up through the pretty Dorgogne countryside and into Limousin.  Our campground was about 10 kms off the main highway in a small village surrounded by sheep, cattle, geese and beautiful fields and trees. It is about 20 kms from Limoges where we wanted to visit, and this was the best spot.

The campsite has showers, power, emptying facilities, and is in beautiful surroundings with lakes and village nearby, and in amongst large glorious coloured oaks. Really quite peaceful and very relaxing.