Wednesday August 8, Domaine Distaise, Grane – Apricot Orchard

 

A rather big boat hull on the move

They say things come in three’s……. hmmmm! Woke this morning to the water pump not working at all well, and the fridge which I had suspected over the past few days of not performing that well, was definitely not working well. Ian googled cleaning the gas connections on fridges and gave it a good going over, sure that it was going to work. Then he set to and pulled out the water pump and sat at the table with bits strewn everywhere. It was back to the days on the farm when you had to be able to fix everything. Put it all together, fitted it back in, turned the pump on…and nothing. Much scratching of the head and finally pulled it all out again, set it back on the table, and found that he had not put back one of the pieces. I didn’t say anything!!!. Finally it was all back together, fitted and working like a charm.
But the fridge wasn’t performing at all. Went and spoke with Corrine, the owner of the farm. She was brilliant, rang a few people and finally found a motorhome place 20 minutes drive away.  Then she offered to store all our fridge and frozen goods. Just wonderful. By this time it was after 12, and everyone was at lunch, so we had a bit to eat and arrived at the company at 2pm. A huge place selling motorhomes and every accessory you should need. Met by a very pleasant girl who spoke quite good English. They had a skeleton staff on as it is French holidays but said her brother who headed the workshop would see us shortly. So, another long wait in the lounge, just like the last 2 days. The poor guy was run off his feet and after touching base with us a number of times Stephane finally got to see us at nearly 5pm. Immediately had us into the workshop and diagnosed the problem, there was a part in the burner that needed replacing and the flue needed to be cleaned. By 6 o’clock we were all done and on our way. Stephane was brilliant. Evidently, he is in charge of the workshop, and normally they shut for 3 weeks but luckily for us this year 4 staff had come back a week earlier.
So back to the same camp as last night, collected our goods from Corrine and hopefully we can tick off all our problems and hit the road properly tomorrow.  It was 34 degrees again today, but the forecast is for rain and much cooler temps tomorrow so here is hoping. Once again photos were not happening, just a few drive by shots.

The sunflowers seem to be a bit small...maybe because of the dry.

A rather "wide" load.

A chateua being repaired, some deep pockets needed.