I can’t behave that graciously, ever.

To satisfy a rather nagging need to know, Mike and I loaded the van and set off at nine thirty this morning to ‘camping du midi’  just the other side of Nantes in Brittany, 343 kilometres down the road. Why so obsessive, I hear you mutter, well, now that have the OK to think about spending the last of our savings on a money earning project we won’t stop until we have finished. Yesterday we went to Caen to see a man who imports ten year old mobile homes that have been kicked off site in the UK and the unsuspecting owner is left with no choice but to buy a new caravan from the guy who took the old one off site or loose their plot. We know this to be true because we have been there and wondering amongst these once happy holiday homes  both Mike and I shared a feeling of being  ripped off. The cheapest most ugliest and damp and dirty was four thousand Euros  but the van I thought I really wanted cost ten thousand so we came home via a chap selling a caravan that served him as a home during the twelve months it took to build his lovely new house,  and that was a heap of rubbish as well and not at all what Mike and I had in mind.  As you know Mike spends hours trawling through le bon coin and last autumn he read me an advert for a camp site, ‘camping du midi”, selling off all their old vans for what seemed to me very little money. Well after yesterdays reality check it seems  they really are for very little money.  I called camping du midi and they had a few left so we went to see what you get when you buy old vans that are being kicked off French campsites We drove for five hours listening to the polite if not bossy voice of Lovely, our new GPS, who let us down only once when we came across a road block and she had no idea what to do next. Mike took her word over mine despite  having the book of maps on my lap and we ended up at the same road block again. I then I suggested we follow the diversion signs but any one who knows a thing or two about French roads will know that a French diversion is chaotic, confusing and ….poooo. We finally got to our “destination on the right in 400 hundred yards’  and met up with Monsieur Maurice who kindly showed us the biggest van you  ever saw and then the smallest van you ever thought possible, and we were smitten. This little mobile home is a cabin on wheels with a double bed, a twin room , toilet, shower and living area with kitchen. Perfect for two people and a couple of kids. When Monsieur Maurice asked how many we might  want and when I replied two he knocked the price down again so Mike took loads  pictures and in a mega second of combined approval we are now the proud owners of a new holiday let occupation.  Mike can be director if he must but the game has now begun.

Whilst driving all day we had plenty of time to formulate ideas and concepts but I also realised that we live in a much more interesting part of France than the middle west side of Brittany. The architecture is very hacienda style with low roofs of red tiles and an abundance of white washed walls and not so clean ones either. I was amazed at the extent of sprawling countryside with no interesting farm complexes or road side manoirs all tall and stone built with charm and Frenchness. We intended to stay out tonight and make our way home in the morning to investigate another part of France but Mike is keen to transfer funds and get the project underway so we stopped of a coffee,  fed and watered HOSS who at the end of the day has spent thirteen hours in the van with very little time to do doggie things but we  hit the road and let the adorable Lovely do all the work.

I know there should not be bad feeling between girls but I did feel rather side lined when Lovely was stuck to the windscreen and Mike would shh me when she spoke and stroke her buttons when she hic upped but, she is a clever girl, who even when you make mistakes forgives you and finds the way home, and I am the first to admit  I can’t behave that graciously, ever.