Chouzé-sur-Loire - 8 November 2018

8 November

Strange, but easy tea last night - gnocchi with pesto filling - courtesy of Lidl. Ok, but looking forward to having a real kitchen to cook in!

I stayed up till nearly morning - and finished another book!  Tintin was up about 3.30, as our smoke detector/carbon monoxide monitor was chirping as it needed a new battery. Eats them! Trouble is, each time it beeps we tell it to shut up, and ignore it - not really the idea - but every time I use the oven (which still keeps going out!) it sets it off...

Ha, no rain today (yet). Tintin went to buy some bread - closed Thursday’s! He then drove for about two and a half hours. Lovely in dry conditions! A lot of smaller roads today. This part of France is so flat, you look out for miles in each direction with just nature. Still like the typical Roman straight roads, lined with trees either side. We stopped off near here and bought a baguette, and some sort of chocolate covered biscuit thing (thought it might be nice because it was a chocolate shop too) - sadly not worth getting fat for - again! Music wise, today Matt Cardle got booted off, then it was Madonna for a while, then Will Young. Seriously need to update our music! Arrived at:

Chouzé-sur-Loire - free to park (pay for services with a jeton - a token)

Aire only takes 6 mohos, and there are now 5 of us. It was a bikes out sort of day. Was cold riding, really should have worn our gloves! Meandered around for about 10.5 miles, sometimes alongside the Loire, and some on little roads. There are lots of fields, lots growing in them too - mainly in poly tunnels. Great smell of fennel!

Had our fill of animals today! Little pony, goats, horses, sheep, pigs, geese, chickens. Also heard lots of dogs! Seems most houses around here have fences around them, with the barking dog keeping guard. And now just seen two cats who live on the moho opposite, one white, one ginger - both fluffy - and both a bit indignant being on a harness - and only having gravel to walk on!

A few years ago we did a LoireLife cycling holiday, and are seeing signposts for lots of places we visited. Was a good holiday, obviously lots of cycling and sightseeing, but Jon and Alison provided lovely food, and an excess of cheese and wine!

We stopped off at Varennes-sur-Loire, and did the obligatory look inside the church. Even had music playing, so much nicer than yesterday’s. The boulangerie was shut until 3.30pm, so could only look at the cakes! Even the mini-market opposite the Aire only closes on, yes you guessed it - Thursday afternoon!

Tintin’s hand ‘got ripped apart’ - he’s so dramatic at times! A bramble caught his hand whilst riding. Between laughing and telling him he should have gone to specsavers - I don’t think it was quite the sympathy he wanted! Well, I did put some Lavender on it!

We’ve been playing a bit of a stupid game! Tintin noticed once that after I’d been driving that the average fuel consumption was better. Unfortunately, we’ve somehow lost the total trip average about a week ago. I had it up to 26.9, but he’s beaten it today with 27.1! We both know it’s meaningless - so many variables, condition of roads, speed, amount of traffic, hills, engine may be more run in (now done about 5,000 miles) etc etc! Generally with Spain and Portugal too, it was running at about 24.5. Next trip we’ll actually take note of the actual miles, amount of litres put in - and do a proper calculation! Not that it really matters - we’ll do it regardless!