Hills, Heat, and yet more Hills !

Friday 7 July

This morning I cycled up to the small village of Cazenac a few miles behind Beynac. Which is all uphill through the forest on a little road, but was worth the effort as I got a very nice view of a couple of Hot Air Balloons behind Baynec Chateau. The return trip was great because I could freewheel virtually all the way down again.

Today the temperature has reached 36 degrees C ! We’re melting ! Apart from sitting under the canopy in the shade back at “Cis” we have been swimming in the pool all day trying to grab as much shade as possible. This campsite is brilliant but for one fault and that there are not enough sun parasols around the pool side. It certainly wasn’t a day for climbing the hill up to Beynac village again.

We have tea at home today rather than get changed and go out. It’s too hot to mess around so after showering we just chill with a glass of wine. Unfortunately the wine has been inside “Cis” all day and it would be very favourable at Christmas and you wanted warmed Mulled wine but even in the cool of the evening ( 27 degrees ) it was almost ( I did  say almost ! ) too warm to drink. But being the true troopers that we are we persevered.

We gave it until 11.15 to call  it a night and it had cooled down outside, and both had seemed to have avoided the biting things, although I did burn my finger on the Mozzie coil ( Patrick you can be such a Muppet sometimes ! )  so we tried to settle down to what was probably still 30 degrees inside ( I know Pete , stop moaning ! ) to attempt the nights sleep.

Saturday 8 July

This mornings run out on the Steel Machine was to Daglan which strangely enough was not up a hill with a Chateau overlooking it, but it was still very pretty. Whilst there were some old parts of the village there was some tastefully modernised and revamped places too. The beauty of this trip was that 90% of it was on a cycleway or on very small roads with zilch traffic. The other good thing this morning was that at 7.00 it was cloudy and cool, perfect.

On my return and after breakfast we unfortunately had to move pitches as the one we were on had been reserved from today ( I did know on our arrival but kept fingers crossed for a cancellation ! )

the new spot was only 100 yards away and only took 20 minutes to move and reset the awning, carpet, elecs etc.

After that the sun was breaking through and the day was turning into another scorcher so we hit the pool again to keep cool. Jane was hanging out with her new pal Alfie and I read my book with regular dips to refresh the parts other beers cannot reach !

Archie on Baywatch duty !

View from the Pool !

Just after lunchtime my new friend Stephen had to nip out in his hire car to fetch some essentials for his youngest Archie and agreed to drop me off on the way  in the beautiful old village ( yet again atop another hill ! ) of Domme which has a stunning view over the Dordogne and is very picturesque.

After an hour taking a few photos up there and a quick beer to refresh ourselves from the by now ever increasing oppressive heat we returned to the site where I needed to hit the cool of the pool again.

Our M.O  for the evening is cooking a nice steak on the camp kitchen and chilling with a beer or glass of wine ( Not too many ! ) before our planned leave tomorrow morning to Bordeilles which we have been recommended. If we can’t get in the Aire there then we will try Brantome a few miles further North as we begin our journey towards Calais, albeit it will take a week to get there.

We were joined later by Steven & Anne and Boys ( sorry Guys, got the correct spelling this time ) for a few glasses of wine and sociable company before hitting the sack around midnight

This will be the last post for a while as I don’t know when I’ll get WIFI again, so catch you later