Day 6, Thursday - Miscommunication rules

The little horrors were up at 7am, (quite unnecessarily as we didnt know when we could pick up the car. Eventually we walked into town with them in the double buggy, took about 40 minutes. We headed straight for the garage and tried to ask what he was doing, but he kept saying "this evening", so it meant that even if he could adapt the system and (that's by no means certain) we still couldn't leave until the following day, and the weather's turned very nasty. Very windy and squally - we must look splendidly English in our cagoules, tramping through the city in search of a coffee for us and le glace pour l'enfants terrible.

Nice coffee, bill horrendous - given to us upfront cost the equivalent of 15.70 francs. Then le garcon came back and asked if we could like some croissant and we said "oui merci", mainly because David said it was a quaint French custom given free, and took two. I was dubious so only took one. So D got a shock when they were 2 francs each!

We went to see the cathedral, which was enveloped in Joan of Arc tat - but at least it was out of the wind and rain. We decided to get more tent pegs because the wind is howling and we may do a Dorethy and Toto if we don't batten down. Later we went to a salon-du-the, had a wonderful cup of Ceylon and we all had Quiche Lorraine, nicest we've tasted. The kids ate all of theirs, which is almost the first proper meal they've eaten apart from chips on the boat, (which counts as a proper meal in their book).

After buying crayons and colouring books and postcards - what do we say? Having a WONDERFUL time, everyone. Wish you were all here to share wet tents, crappy cars that haven't got us far, crying toddler and spending money we haven't got ... We walked back to camp and then at 5.30 I went to collect the car trembling lest the adaptation had failed. But it was ready at a village called Olivet. The garage man took me over in his BL Innocenti - very nice, made in Italy with a Mini engine. Returned in triumph (and very relieved) to Big D and packed the car. It was raining again for a change.

Expenses Francs
coffee, croissants, glace 21.60
lunch Quiche and tea 37.00
tent peg and Jar 15.20
crayons and books 7.55
postcards 7.00
stamps 6.00

Day 5, Wednesday - Exhausted!

Beautiful day! got up early, packed up and away by 10 am from Chartres. Would have been earlier but we took all the wrong turnings possible. Didn't even get to see the Cathedral, so will do that on the way back. We were on our way to Orleans and then to Nevers, which is heading SOUTH (a great step forward to us seeing as we hadn't got off the the first page of the map at this stage). But the road to Orleans is long with a broken exhaust pipe dangling down ...
We drove around the city looking for and eventually finding a British Leyland dealer, but he didn't stock estate car exhaust systems. However after a long discussion which didn't get us very far, but thank goodness for David's school french, he's agreed to adapt a saloon exhaust - but not until tomorrow. It's very frustrating, we were making quite good time and Joanna's stopped crying.

We found a campsite on the banks of a river, it's a fairly primitive site but it'll do for tonight and then have to take the car in at 8pm. Went to a hypermarket in the afternoon, always a highlight of French holidays for me - bought steak, courgettes and lovely stuff for dinner.
Later I took the car to the garage and thought I was asking when I could pick it up tomorrow, but when I reported what I'd said to David he said I'd asked the man what time it was ...

Expenses Francs
Provisions 37.50
fruit 5.15
Icecreams 6.00