Our Tour de France - Week Four - And Chillax

A time to chill

If you've been following the recent post you will know that we are trying to capture our 54 day journey around the western side of France in weekly installments. As a quick reminder we've already made our slow way down from our arrival port in Caen in our newly acquired VW campervan affectionately known as Elsie, through Normandy, touching Brittany to the stunning Loire valley enjoying the wines as we stopped at our overnight hosts who are part of the France Passion network, we then ventured west across to an AirBnB in La Rochelle, enjoyed the Cognac region above Bordeaux before spending a week in that famous wine growing region, taking in vineyards, castles, churches, cathedrals and French markets along the way.

This weeks post should be slightly shorter than those before but who knows as the words come flowing through the mind onto the fingers typing on the keyboard to bring you a flavour of what we did whilst spending time chillaxing at our daughter-in-laws family holiday home which is located between Cahors, Agen and Toulouse. 

As you may remember we arrived just in time to catch the British Grand Prix from Silverstone whilst being dive-bombed by several thousand wasps who had made their nests in the chateaux during the summer months.

Our stunning home for a week

The wasps were to play a major part of the week as we tried to enjoy time next to the pool with our books and podcasts. Prior to us arriving the 'wasp man' had been called in to sort the nests over the weekend and apparently found 30 up in the eaves. During those first few days they were fine, still flying around noisily but not to the extent that we had expected. However after a couple of they were back with a vengeance, drinking water from the pool but not really to interested in us or our food and drinks. More on those black and orange hooped jacket wearing blighters later.

Maz on a morning run before
the heat of the day

We had visited this beautiful home, that our daughter-in-laws family have worked on so much over the last few years in creating into a stunning place to enjoy a holiday, before. Its set in rolling fields of sunflowers with a densely wooded valley behind and a little copse capped with pines along the dirt road track that leads to the chateaux. All of our previous holidays had been with family and friends so to be there on our own felt a little strange and it was sad not to have anyone to share these special moments with.

Fresh veg at Valence market

On the Tuesday morning we awoke to another clear and sunny morning so we ventured into Valence where we knew the weekly market was taking place in and around the old church and market square. Once again we topped up with fresh fruit and veg, olives, tapenade and garlic and enjoyed the ambiance of a town abuzz with locals going about their daily lives with the exception of the masks to protect everyone from this ongoing Covid-19 virus which everyone was adhering to. 

Route d'Occitaine

On our way home we were surprised to see a large presence of police, they were blocking roads and roundabouts, we were wondering what was happening, was there a bigger issue with Covid-19?, had the government announced more stop and searches?, then all of a sudden I looked in my rear mirror and noticed a yellow sign with a bike on and the penny dropped, we were on the route of stage four of the international cycling event 'Route d'Occitanie' 2020 which involved some of the top riders using this as the last preparations for their next epic ride, the full Tour De France which would start before we left later in September. 

Once we knew what was happening we parked up in the local Lidl store car park and waited to see the cyclists speed past with their huge entourage of support vehicles left trailing in their wake as they made their way to the finish at Rocamadour around 195kms further down the road. 

A run for breakfast

It was nice not to be moving on from place to place each night, having a real bed to sleep in and a huge kitchen to cook in it really felt luxurious, each morning both of us got up to run around the fields, and one morning I (Tim) even took it upon myself to run the 5 mile route (10 miles there and back!) along some of the beautiful country lanes to Castelsagrat to fetch our breakfast from the boulingery. Thankfully I'm quite a quick runner so the pastries were still warm when I got back and we enjoyed them with some local jam and dairy free butter that we'd bought the day before in Valence and although the wasps were still around they were ignoring us and seemed happier to join the swallows who were using the pool as a local drinking hole. 

Morning coffee and ice cream

Before we set out on another morning adventure we noticed the wasps becoming even more numerous so we gave our neighbours a call and they in turn called 'the wasp man' who promised would make a visit to us the next afternoon. Our morning trip took us to the hill top town of Lauzerte, once again this stunning town was all but deserted but with its cobbled streets, picturesque market square, artisan studios ranging from metal work, beading and various styles of painting we could sense that this was the place to be. We stopped for a coffee with a side of homemade ice cream, we know that that's not truly plant based but unfortunately we are only human so succumbed to the temptation and thanked the cows and calves for their sacrifice and indulged.

Another wild water swim to
add to Maz' list!

That afternoon the pool was too densely populated by the wasps who had put on their black and orange bathing suits and were having a mini olympics or 'It's a knockout' taking turns to race back and forth to the nest with much water. With the pool out of bounds we took a lovely stroll through the woods to the neighbours property which is blessed to have a couple of large lakes so we positioned ourselves at one end and Maz donned her swimming kit, thankfully not hooped black and orange like the wasps and joined the large numbers of fish for a swim in the aqua marine blue waters which look so stunning against the green wooded backdrop.

Evenings watching the sunset 
and stargazing

Our evenings were mostly spent eating and enjoying a glass of alcoholic local grape juice whilst awaiting the sunset and arrival of the superb mass of stars who seem to shine so much brighter the further south we ventured. This nightscape was enhanced by the meteor showers which grace the northern skies at this time of year. By this time I (Tim) had started the Victor Hugo epic Les Miserables so one evening we sat out beneath the heavens listening to the stage show of the book following the story of Cossette, Jean Valjean, Javert and Fantaine adventure as mother nature put on her dazzling night show.

The wasp man cometh

'The Wasp Man' duly arrived the following day, the weather had been so hot and that day was no different and we really felt sorry for him as he put on his heavyweight clothing and started to tackle the huge problem with spray and as keen eye in that stifling heat. It looked like hard work and we tried to help him by ascending the towers which gave us a better view cross the roofline and where we could point to likely places where the nest were. Our hearts were in our mouths as we saw him stumbling around on top of the roof perhaps a hundred feet above the ground, and on a couple of occasions we really thought he would fall due to the clumpy suit and his ever growing weariness.

Don't fall from there!

Sadly our week drew to an end but we had one last hurrah as our daughter-in-laws mother arrived at around 11pm on our last evening. It was the first time we had met up with her since our sons wedding nearly two years before so we opened a bottle or two, or three of 'pinky fizz' and whiled away the early hours with stories of our travels and the shared admiration of our children as they set out on their life journey, with the tangible expectation of an added bonus of us all becoming grandparents in early September. 

It was a great way to end our stay and the next morning we took flight just like those pesky wasps that we needed to warn her of and that could still be lurking in the nooks and crannies of that huge stone home which we promise we'll visit again very very soon.