Deux Saint Michel's

 Deux Saint Michel's

Our time at the Chateaux gave us time to think, we’d been away for about a month and had the most amazing time, but actually it felt like time to head home. Both of us were feeling ready, and as I have said previously the best thing about van life is that you can move about whenever you want to. 

We had one location (well, person actually) that we really wanted to see before we left France, so we got in touch, worked out when we could meet up. Our timetable was cast. Eurotunnel let us change our booking (again)  and we began the final stint of our incredible journey.

We had a few days before we could meet up with our friend Andy, so we got the map out, decided to head to a beach and found ourselves in Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef in the Loire. It’s a small fishing village and holiday location, but when we were there it was a bit early in the season, so lots of places were closed.

We did make more duck friends on the campsite, with Ian teaching them to stay on the grass to prevent mucky mishaps.

 We spent the day wandering along the sea front and loved the fishing huts out in the sea. I’ve never seen anything like that before.

Next stop was another Saint Michel, one I’d always wanted to visit, but never had. Ian had been before, but as he went on a junior school trip it was a while ago! This seemed like a good chance to go again!

It turns out you can stay the night in a motorhome at Mont-Saint-Michel which was just perfect for us as we only wanted a quick stop on our journey towards home. We arrived late afternoon and took the bus down the causeway as soon as we arrived. 

If you haven’t been, you should. It's a wonderful meandering street up the steep hill filled with beautiful buildings, shops, cafe’s bars and people. Even at this time of year it was busy, I hate to think what it is like midsummer. After a quick drink we walked back to Agy, stopping for a bite to eat on the way.    

We may have stayed in a car park, but it was a fabulous location!

Wine, cheese and a Château

 It’s been a while since I last posted, and a long time since we were traveling, but life and work got in the way…. However, to pick up from where we left off (and to finish this trip before we embark on another)….Speeding through the mountains we needed to come up with a new plan. As the trip developed I got better at finding park ups on the move. Before leaving the UK, I needed hours, maps, books, websites, with coordinates jotted down just in case. To be extra sure, I always had a couple of back up stops if the first one didn’t work out. 

Now, that’s great when you know where you are going and have plenty of time. However, it turns out, most of the time plans change (the beauty of a van is if it isn’t right, you can move), and if plans change, so do park ups!

This time it was just a case of locating somewhere we can stay that has a restaurant and we can rest up before moving on. Out came the phone, a quick look at the map and I’d found the spot, only the roads were slow going, rather narrow with loads of villages (and we were still hoping to move at speed to get further north). Perfect for a slow meander through France, not quite what we were looking for, so another quick search and Dax became our destination.

We’d never heard of Dax, but it turned out to be a little gem. A Roman town with a spa, lovely cafes and a microbrewery!  We were heading for the cathedral to have a look around and some respite from the sun, but it was closed when we arrived and this little spot was next door. It would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?

In the end we stayed a couple of nights so Ian could recover from the very long drives and we could plan a little more slowly .As we slowly drank our coffee the next day  we talked about what to do next. We were in France several weeks earlier than planned and originally we’d expected to spend most of our time in Spain, just driving through France on route. We’d not thought about exploring France on this trip - that was for future trips. But here we were.

I’m a member of several Facebook groups for motorhome owners, some fabulously helpful (some less so!) I’d seen a few people mention that you could often stay at vineyards and Châteaux, and I liked the sound of that. Bordeaux wasn’t too far away, and we do love red wine (although to be honest, Argentina produces our favourite, Malbec, but that was perhaps a little too far away to drive to).

I opened up one of our handy park up apps (Park4 night) and ta da Château Marquis de Vauban/Château du Cône looked perfect - and it was.

You can stay for free in the grounds, next to the Château among the vineyards with no obligation to try or buy any wine. It was beautiful. Calm, quiet and close to the small town of Blaye.

After a welcome aperitif and an introduction (in French) by the Marquis we had a good rest, and booked into a wine tour.. It turned out Bordeaux was still really hot, but we ventured into Blaye and had a wander round the UNESCO World Heritage status citadel, had a bite to eat while it unexpectedly rained!

As the only English speakers visiting we had a personal tour, just the two of us, where our guide told us all about the local vines and showed us their setup. Really, it’s just a bit bigger version of our brewing system at home.

Ian was fascinated that they ferment at quite high temperatures and he’d been reading about ‘ideal temperatures’, and in our conservatory it is often hotter than recommended. He felt reassured by an award winning vineyard not going with the online forum consensus.  

After a brief tasting, we purchased a bottle - just to be polite - and headed back to Agy (all of about 10 steps) for our second night in our home at the Château. Not something I had ever imagined saying! 

Reach for the stars

Having figured out how to make the roof work, the walls needed to be constructed out of tongue and groove and the roof covered.

I painted the roof in a rubbery paint, and Ian and Nigel started cladding while we waited for the roofing felt to arrive. I was amazed at how quickly it all came together.

Now to explain, the walls go together by slotting one board on top of the one below, which is simple. That's easy when you can reach it, measure it and just hold it up to slot it on, fixing it with a few nails, but… when you have a pointy roof, you need to cut the boards to fit with tricky angles, each one slightly different to the next. Trickier, but once you have the angles right, still nice and easy. But then you come to the back wall, where you can’t stand next to it to measure, nor can you easily reach from inside.  

This is the point that Nigel had to go home (he’s a canny one that Nigel :-) ) so I offered to help Ian. We did OK measuring the longer straight boards by feeding them along the fence, and marking them, then with one of us inside, and one outside, we could slot them on, hammering in the nails from the edge. 

Then came the pointy bit. Once we got here, it was too tall to reach from the inside and we struggled to reach from the outside, so ever the optimist I said, I think I can fit in the gap, so I could hold and nail them… Oh, how wrong I was. This is the gap…. 

I managed to wiggle myself in, bending to get under the counterweight of the roof. So there I was, sideways in, one raised arm and a leg in the gap, with half my body wedged in, but on the floor. How do you stand up when you can’t lean forward, can’t grip hold of anything and are firmly wedged? The answer is you can’t, but nor could I wiggle out! Ian tried reaching me from the inside, but it was my dodgy arm that was raised, so pulling hard really wasn’t a good idea, and he could only just reach my fingertips! He tried pulling from the side, but nope, that wasn’t working. By now I was laughing so hard I had no strength at all, and Ian was getting worried. Can you imagine the response when you ring the fire brigade to ask if they can extract your wife from the gap between the fence and the observatory you are building?

I’m not sure how, but eventually we both stopped laughing, had a rest ( a slightly uncomfortable one for me as by this time my legs were numb), and Ian managed to free me, with one big pull!

Having decided I didn't fit in the gap, Ian found a way to complete the task. I have no idea how, as I was reeling from my squishing.

Once the roof felt arrived we nailed that on, clad the inside, oiled it all to preserve the wood, and fitted the telescope.

Fitting the telescope actually involved a lot of measuring, screwing, taking things apart, electrics and fiddliness, so in fact took hours, but it went in and fitted (phew).

The final job was to Polar Align the scope, which needed a clear night, so after a bit of a break due to dodgy weather, and it being far too cold for us to contemplate spending hours in the garden late at night, we did just that using the Pole star as our reference.

Here it is, watching the night sky, bringing a whole new word into view. 

What's next?

When I shared the blog about Secara, several people commented on how crazy we are (thanks!!) and others asked what’s next? Well this is what’s next. The delivery of a very exciting box. When it arrived, I had no idea what was in it. Ian had ordered it and not said a word.

I have always loved looking at the stars and since we moved here, the sky is so much darker than anywhere we have lived, which means we can see so much more. The night sky is just stunning.

Those of you who know Ian, know he doesn’t do birthdays, but he does surprise me with incredible gifts once in a while, and this time he has surpassed himself. He’s bought me a telescope, a beautiful big one. One I can really see and learn about the night sky with. He is amazing, and I love him.

Ian being Ian, wasn’t content with just a telescope, because that would mean Polar Aligning it every time we use it (basically making sure it is pointing in the right direction, so what you think you are looking at is what you see, and you can search for objects in the night sky). Ian decided we needed more.

This began with a delivery of wood and some concrete blocks to stand them on. Our good friend and neighbour Nigel joined Ian on the next mammoth build. First steps, plot the dimensions and pop in a post that’s free standing. Then start constructing a tiny house (well that’s what it looked like).

Much wood chopping, measuring, drilling and discussion took place.

Big armoured cables were laid and Nigel, being an electrician before retirement, wired it all in.

The thing is, when you are building a tiny house, or a shed, roofs are simple, but if you are building an observatory, they are not! We watched lots of YouTube videos, considered our options, thought about our available space, where we would be able to see the sky, and came up with the decision that a roof that pivots open, rather than slides back would give us the best outcome. Perfect, now we needed to make it happen, which is easier said than done, but we found a way!

If you are wondering why the post was one of the first things built, when there isn’t even a floor, well that’s because when you mount a telescope you want it to be very still and steady, not to move and wobble if the floor moves, so it needed to be completely independent of the floor once we put that in.