Yes, in a stunning reversal of fortune, we are sitting here in warmth! But that would probably be because dad has spent the last hour or so nursing the usually reluctant fire. It’s actually too warm to sit too close to the thing now, which is nice

Lack of entry yesterday as we didn’t really do much. We headed into Agen to get some €1 coins for the electricity meter and some postcards. Postcards were easy enough, and I even managed to get stamps too, but 1 Euro coins? Nah – there’s a shortage or something, apparently, and banks don’t like to give them out. Seems strange to me – go to any English bank and they’ll give you change. They’d probably even make an effort to understand a foreigners poor attempts at English, but no, not here… Oh well, we ended up getting some from Anita anyway… She says she can’t understand their reluctance either.

Today, we headed south-east to Montauban – a medium sized town which, according to autoroute, “is essentially a market and industrial town, with a good shopping centre but scant remains of the medieval bastide”. (So now you know)

We parked next to the river, which, judging by the assorted debris deposited in the trees, had been substantially higher in recent days – high enough to submerge the car park we were in, even. We walked through the town which was strangely alive for a lunchtime compared to Agen which seems to close up and shoo everyone away between 12 and 2. It’s a bit of a college town with lots of kids hanging around or queueing up for their sandwiches. We walked through a park, and back to the car along the river, and headed back to Agen to get some provisions (wine) before heading back to the gite.

I was informed (by various text message and phone call – thankyou) that it was snowing at home last night and today. Which was nice to know as this was our first day of actual good weather here. Proper “sunglasses and open window” weather.