2003, Day Two, Nancy

Day two 3^rd June

Over to reception on my bike first thing (about 10.00) to find out about the busses, reception is now manned by a French girl, she has times for the morning but not the afternoon.  I think it might be better to leave our trip into town until tomorrow, so I ask where the nearest supermarket is, its about two kilometres to the left in the next village.

We get the van packed up ready to move again and set off for provisions but first we need more diesel.  According to the AutoRoute, there two filling stations close by, so we set off for the closest.  We never did find it, we do a U turn and head for the other one, which is exactly where it should be.  The supermarket is easier to find but by this time, it’s closed for the afternoon break, we head back to the campsite for lunch (good job we brought some food with us). Dot can have a drink with her lunch but I have to wait until after we have been back to the shop.

As we eat we notice that the grass is being cut and wonder how the driver will cope with the electric hook-up cables that crisscross in the long grass between the central electricity point and the numerous vans.  Then there is this strange noise, how can I best describe it?  It was like the noise a motor mower would make, if cut through, chopped up, then got coiled up and jammed with an electric cable. He has mangled the electric cable leading to a caravan opposite ours, luckily for the driver the owners are out for the day. The driver tried to pull the cable out from under the mower, he then turned the mower over and with his feet pushing on the under side he pulled and pulled but to no avail.  He then had a bright idea, and went over and unplugged the cable from the electricity supply and then started unwinding the cable from the blades.  Eventually he got it all unravelled, collected all of the chopped up bits and binned them, disconnected the remaining cable from the van, remade the chopped off end and reconnected everything as if nothing had happened.  He then gives up cutting for the day and heads off.  When the owners of the van return they will be none the wiser, at most they may think there has been a power cut, until the next time they are a long way from the electrical points, their cable must be at least half the length that it used to be.

For more entertainment, as we hang around waiting for the shop to reopen, we sit and watch the afternoon arrivals, mainly Dutch (most have probably just done the same trip as we did yesterday), anyway they are driving around looking for a plot that suits them.  Did I mention that there was a one-way system?  Well it doesn’t look like it was mentioned to the Dutch.  The pitch two on from ours, is the smallest plot on the site, this plot also has a rather large tree in the middle of it, so when the largest caravan arrives, imagine our surprise when it heads straight for it.  When the caravan is reversed in right up to the tree, it is still halfway across the road, it takes about thirty minutes before they realise it will never fit and move on to the next plot, which by the way, is about the biggest pitch on the site.

We leave the table and chairs out, disconnect the electricity and set off back to the shop, as we start to look around, we decide we are not in a shopping mood, which is very unusual for us, we shop, that’s what we do.  I think we must have been sat in the sun too long, anyway we get a pizza for tea and some quality beer, we also splash out €1.00 on a  bottle of wine.