So we woke up to another beautiful day - not a hint of mist this time, and hot from the word go. Just as well there were not rycles planned for today! We set off for McDonalds and, as you can probably tell, connected to their wifi and updated our blog, amongst other things. Despite being there near lunchtime, we just had coffees and Andy managed to avoid the temptation of Le Big Mac.
On the downside, it seems that we don't get much more than two days of not travelling, and therefore not charging the battery, for the fridge to keep working. It won't have been helped by the hot weather no doubt, but it gave up during the night. Due to our variety of cables for electric hook-ups with both 2- and 3-pin connectors, Andy had come up with the idea of buying (yes, here we go again!) a small battery charger that we could connect to the electic hook-up in a campsite to charge the leisure battery for the fridge with. So we then went in search of a big enough supermarket that would stock it, eventually found one, and found a suitable battery charger. We then set off for our next campsite, but took a scenic route (deliberately!) to get more battery charging time.
On our way, we passed a wedding cavalcade. All the guests travel behind the wedding car with a flower attached to the aerial and hazard lights flashing - a really nice touch.
We got to the campsite, only to find that someone was already in the pitch earmarked for us. Chris trooped back to reception and was told to just pick another one and let them know which one (they're not packed here at the moment....) So we got a better pitch right next to a hook up with a view to the river - lovely. The battery charger works like a charm, the fridge is fridging, and having no direct neighbours we have a whole load of hook-ups to ourselves, so have one doing the battery charging and one leading to the van for the plug - perfect!
We then went on our first sojourn on the bicycles together in the VERY hot weather. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a cycle path up to the Loire itself from here (one is planned - great...), and we quickly decided the main road wouldn't be a pleasant ride. So we toured around small roads in the area, then came back to the town. The town is absolutely lovely - the chateau looks wonderful (and will be explored soon), and it seems to have the only hill in the area (which is good and bad!). After we'd almost finished the ride, we wanted to go back past a restaurant we had noticed earlier advertising moules frites (a pattern emerging, perhaps), which was, of course, up a very steep hill. So the decision was made to finally eat out for dinner. However, by the time we got back, showered, had a beer, it was pretty late. Not to worry, you would think, the continental Europeans eat late. Not so in Montreuil-Bellay it would seem. We walked back up to the restaurant to find it was full and no more food orders were being taken - queue one crestfallen Andy. So back to the van and a veggie-mexican concoction by Chris - Andy then perked up again, especially with another beer or two to wash it down. So the first bike trip was a success.
One other thing, apart from the fridge, which decided to throw a strop today was our laptop. Something dodgy seems to have happened in McDonalds this morning (not for the first time) and it wouldn't boot. It would get part way then shut down. Having finally found a way to boot in safe mode, even that wouldn't work. Dire signs. We won't bore the non-techies out there with the details, but Chris eventually found a way to turn off the auto-shut down, booted for the nth time, expecting a blue screen but at least a sign of the problem, when it decided to boot. We are now scared of shutting down..... So a note for future - if our blogs stop without any warning, it is probably due to a dead laptop!
Tomorrow, more touring of the area, a maybe our first trip around a chateau, if it's open on Sundays. Oh, and perhaps partaking in the wine tasting that is laid on here on a Sunday evening.....
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