Thursday August 9, Morin Lousir’Auto, Charmes-sur-Rhone

This morning in the orchard as the storm was arriving.

Unfortunately, our high fives for getting the fridge fixed yesterday were shorted lived. Although the flue and gas input had all been cleaned, it still was not getting cold enough. So off at 8 this morning and back to see Stephane at the workshop. And what a morning it was, the thunder and lightning started at 7 and then the rain came and until 3pm the thunderstorm continued. Have never seen that sort of action for so long. At least it cooled the air and we were down to 18 degrees for a while, quite a relief.
Stephane had a good look and decided to put a computer operated temperature unit in the fridge which would register every 10 minutes what the temperature was over the next four hours. We drove down to the nearby supermarket to get a bit of food for lunch, unfortunately most of our supplies have been ruined and thrown away.  It was a day of just passing time as we waited for the results, and they weren’t very flash. The fridge cooled down a bit but not nearly enough. Stephane then hooked us up to electricity to see if that worked any better, and if it did that would mean that it was an issue with the gas, but the result was the same.
We had two options, replace parts in the back of the fridge, but as it is 11 years old it may have other issues, and for double the price we could replace the fridge/freezer unit. Decided to live on bread and water for a while, replace the fridge and rest easy. This is a family run company and we feel very comfortable with the guys we are dealing with.
Tonight, we are parked in a cul-de-sac outside the factory and tomorrow at 9 the new fridge will arrive and it will be a 3 to 4 hour job to install. It really has been quite a frustrating 5 days, but we had no options but to get things sorted. The rain had stopped this afternoon and after dinner went for a walk down towards the Rhone River, didn’t quite find the track but it felt good to be out doing something.  And hopefully tomorrow night we will be up in the hills. It’s been good to get out with my camera today and for the first time there has been some great light and clouds.

Very wet roads driving into town this morning.

There is always a photo wherever you are....
and I found this apricot tree this evening
over the fence.

Evening on the railway line

Beautiful evening sky

Homeward bound.

A different sort of a campsite.