Hello again. Day 3 and all’s well – although that certain someone is never far from my mind. It appears I do have it bad – so sue me.

The first night in the Gite went well last night – sleeping bags did their job and we were cosy enough, so good nights’ sleep all round. We got up around 9, had breakfast, and headed out to Saint Cirq Lapopie – a little village about 90 minutes drive north east from the gite.

There’s a strange thing about the French – they like to build big, hard to build buildings on top of hills. These buildings are usually religious, and I think it’s a combination of wanting to be closer to God (maybe their prayers will be answered quicker if God doesn’t have to strain to hear them?) and wanting to prove just how worthy they are by making the already difficult task of church-building that little bit harder. That tends to preclude the fact that the people actually doing the hard work weren’t the people deciding where their church went. The people actually building the thing were probably wondering: “Why does that mad git want me to lug stones up this bloody great hill?”. Whilst the mad git himself was probably thinking: “Ooh, God’s gonna love me, look at this wonderful monument I’m having built in His honour”.

I wonder if God takes these things into account?

Anyway… Saint Cirq Lapopie. It’s a little village built on the side of a valley, overlooking the Lot River. It seems to relish its medieval-ness, with a spattering of houses seeming laid down at random with tiny streets weaving between them. At the top of the hill is – of course – the church, pointing north-south overlooking the valley. It all seems a bit of a shame to me though. It’s become a bonafide tourist trap with little shops selling little souvenirs all over the place. All closed this time of year though, so we almost had the place to ourselves. But you could tell the village was entirely devoted to looking after the tourists who surely flood the place in the summer. It’s not a village anymore, it’s one big sideshow. Shame.

We parked at the top, (and sat in the car whilst we got rained on) and walked down into the village, up to a viewpoint, back down to the church, then back up to the car. It sounds so simple, but my poor little legs didn’t know what had hit them, and by the end of the little excursion I was worn out and starving.

On the way back we stopped off at the first semi-open looking bar-restaurant we saw and had possibly the most expensive chicken and chips ever (€35!) and then back to the Gite via a supermarket.

And so, here we are, drinking wine, The Eagles on dad’s MP3 player (“…sweet summer sweat, some dance to remember, some dance to forget…”) and a bottle and a half of wine down. Relaxed is one word, pining is another.

I am three quarters of the way through Microserfs, and have just started Northern Lights. Microserfs has got me wanting to write code for me again. “One-point-oh” code. Northern Lights just has me wanting my own dæmon.