Thunder and Lightning!

A beautifully clear day started off as a very clear, although hardly quiet, night. There was a wedding reception in the bar, and they can show the Scots a thing or two about how to celebrate a wedding, judging from the noise, and the hour it went on to (well past 2am). Funnily, sometime after midnight the traditional dancing must have been going on as, as when we both went to the loo, we could hear accordions, and the muted sounds sounded so like a ceilidh. Whilst we couldn't hear the party from our van, we could, however, hear a bunch of folk who had been on the other side of the river going for a noisy swim, with the blokes coming over here. Ah the joys of the young (says old-age Andy, hee hee - C.).

Then, sometime in the middle of the night, we were woken by some very impressive thunder. Chris got out of the van to move the washing line a bit more under the shelter, and that's when we could also see the lightning. It was pretty impressive. It must have rained, but the trees we are under are better at shelter than we'd realised as we didn't hear it if it did.

Morning came with overcast skies tho still warm - actually very pleasant weather. A check of the weather forecasts had pessimistic BBC saying rain, and more optimistic Wunderland saying patchy sun with 20% chance of rain. So after Andy collected our bakery order, we just took our time, then went out on the bikes to see if a local supermarket was open (it wasn't, ho hum). On the way back, a detour to the restaurant with moules hoping to book (still no luck) took us past one shop which was open, so by the time we'd done all of that, it was late morning, and guess what, the sun was out. By the time we got ourselves together and left (Chris taking one route and Andy taking another), it was late morning and getting hot.

Andy's run was slow. Like real slow. He took in a nice wee village and caught a glimpse of another chateau but couldn't work out how to get there, so an out and back of just over nine miles, running past vineyard after vineyard just had to do. But it was like hot. Well hot. Like totally dripping with sweat and melting hot. So nine miles would do nicely. Once he was back and an industrial amount of water taken onboard Chris turned up from her cycle.

Chris' cycle had taken small roads toward Saumur. She didn't quite get there as we'd agreed a time to meet back at the van and she wouldn't have had time, but wasn't far off. There were some pretty, and some not so pretty, villages along the way, and LOTS of sunflower fields. And it was hot. The plus side of being on a bike tho' is going faster and generating a breeze! However, being out for another two hours has left her feeling a little saddle-sore :o( However, her journey has given us a cycle plan for the next day or two.

Another lovely Chris-in-the-Bongo cooked meal with some excellent local Saumur wine (thanks to the open supermarket we found in the morning) and all is, again, well with the world. Off to the bar to make sure the local brew is okay too.