ROSCOFF ISOLATION

 It seems to take forever to get light this morning plus there is the usual early morning rain.

We only have a short drive directly north towards Roscoff with a short stop at the service point in Penze.  It’s as pretty and tranquil as ever and we consider staying here for the day but guess if we want to get a space in Roscoff we cannot wait until Saturday morning.

For once the river is nearly full, instead on being mudflats, and scores of white birds are gathered on the shore waiting to feed on the ebb.

Farmers are obviously busy now, in place the road is slick with mud carried out of the fields by tractor tyres and just after we turn off at the Perhardy sign we see the pickers stooping to cut cauliflowers.

To our surprise when we reach the aire there are only three vans, or rather two vans and a Concord mobile mansion.  The east part of the aire has a temporary fence with signs saying reserved car parking for the nearby nutritional school.

The estuary is full of blue water with a windsurfer trying hard but not going very far or fast.

We get online and complete the border control forms then do little for the afternoon.  More vans arrive and there are periods of heavy rain, after one shower the sun emerges and casts a full rainbow over the bay right down to the wet sand.

Despite being as lovely as usual in Roscoff and the aire filling through the day, the number of people actually out and about and the number of cars are way lower than normal.

  

PIZZA N'EST PAS LA

Another night of rain but dry when we get up.  Today’s drive should be simple, up the motorway for a bit then north cross country.

We are away in good time, join the motorway and make good progress.  Traffic is much busier in Brittany now than many other places and large stretches of the motorway are flanked by industrial zones.  There are still some fabulous views in places, high on the rolling hills with rotund woodland stretching as far as the eye can see.  There are three options for exits to follow the tourist route, we take the third near Chateaulin.  The first town off the motorway is Henvic and at Henvic’s first crossroads is a ‘Deviation’ sign - here we go again.

It’s a pretty deviation, winding up and down through lush farms with multi-coloured cattle or fields tinged mauve with onion flowers.  Near Sizun [a ‘parish close’ we visited a long time ago] the road widens and is newly surfaced making a joyful drive through browning woods and bracken.  Autumn has obviously come much earlier in Brittany than further south.

It’s not long before we reach St Thegonnec, another of the ‘parish closes’ towns of this area.  We’ve been here before too, visiting the beautifully carved granite church and its restored interior painting works.  Parish Closes were like tiny sovereign states, self sufficient and officiated by the church, often earning revenue from textile manufacture.

The aire is quite busy but its hedged bays mean no overcrowding, and the number of vans might mean that the regular Thursday pizza van will be here this evening.

After a tuna salad lunch we spend most of the afternoon taking things easy.

An email from Brittany Ferries confirms our sailing for Sunday and includes a link to the passenger locator form that we have to fill in for border control, but we can only do it within 48 hours of arrival.  We wonder what happens if you don’t have a smartphone, but we do, so we will comply.

Covid’s wicked curse strikes again in the evening, unsurprisingly really, when the pizza van doesn’t come, but we have a supermarket one self isolating in the fridge so we get our pizza anyway.

HUMP BRIDGE HUMP

 It rained heavily all night, stopping around 08:00

As the sun comes up the trees along the canal are bathed in low light creating, through the soft mist, a scene worthy of a fine watercolour painting.  Ali rushes out to get a photo but gets her jeans caught on a bungee hook by the door, by the time she has released it the moment has passed without being caught on camera [or the scene...]

We use the service point, next to an old machinery house.  These buildings always look the same: a few courses of stone base then big, slab sided walls pierced with tall, cast iron framed windows and a pitched slate roof.

Narrow lanes lead us back to the main road but after only a few miles we encounter a long ‘deviation’ for roadworks around Rouans.  The country roads are colourful, glistening wet in the sunshine from the recent rain.

After a fuel stop we approach the St Nazaire bridge, still operating the experimental lane control we encountered in 2016.  

From the top we can see a monstrous cruise ship MSC VIRTUOSA nearing completion.  We wonder if something so big might prosper in post Covid cruising, the operating crew numbers - deck/engine - vary little between ships and hotel/hospitality crew is a ratio to passengers.  Big ship at one third capacity, plenty of social distancing in public areas, reduced hotel crew, nett operating costs similar to smaller ships [bar fuel] and they’re in a better position than smaller ships will be.  

We planned a route through the salt marshes but after the bit of dual carriageway we enter the first of a continuous string of villages, each competing for the ‘Most Aggressive Speed Bump Award - 2020’.  Sub categories include ‘Smallest Roundabout’, ‘Narrowest Pinch Point’ and ‘Slowest Bin Wagon’.  And they’re not even pretty villages!

We stop in the last one, St Joachim, to recover from this Dakar Rally simulator and hold down a sandwich.  In 3 hours we have travelled 41 miles only.

The ‘green route’ north from here turns out to be very pretty, partly through the marshes, sometimes through woody patches with lots of red virginia creeper, before we join the N165 west.

The miles start to click over quickly now but we have been so badly held up we consider whether to stop on the coast south of Vannes or in Hennebont, but press on towards Quimperle.

When the satnav leads us past the Quimperle east sign we are unperturbed, but when we come off west and continue west Ali questions where we are going, insisting the aire is east of town.   Nick, who has the hump with delays and busy traffic, forgets that he had programmed an aire near Quimperle, not in it.  We reprogramme and find it is 5 miles back through the city.  Last time we came here in 2008 it was a quiet sort of place but the teatime traffic is manic and it takes half an hour.  We arrive and park in the small aire and it dawns that this has 2-3 places which is why we were going to ‘rue de Quimperle - le Trevoux’ 4 miles north west of the city.  Ali suggest we could go if we want; answer not printable.

It’s a secluded little spot though with a babbling brook beside us and lots of birds singing around us.  Ali crosses the bridge and finds lovely views of the river.

After coffee, then beer all is calm and we have a tasty salmon and pesto supper.

A DIFFERENT LOCK-DOWN

 Parking under trees in autumn has consequences, the randomly patterned fallen leaves on the skylights look like William Morris wallpaper. 

There is light rain as we leave Gencay heading north towards Poitiers then as we sway right and  left at a roundabout the oil light comes on for a few seconds, obviously needing a top up.  With no oil in the locker we  have to divert into Leclerc in Poitiers to get some.  By the time we have parked and shopped and topped up the oil and threaded back to the main road over an hour has been lost.

It’s now the familiar journey up the motorway past Briessure and Parthenay where the dual carriageway ends.  A fierce crosswind and convoys of trucks throw Mary*Lou around badly.  We won’t be alone, there is a surprisingly high number of motorhomes on the road as there was yesterday. 

We stop near Chiche for lunch as the rain clears, and soon after restarting our journey we enter the Muscadet wine region.  The vineyards are looking lovely, the autumn golds and reds of the leaves almost translucent, glowing in the weak sun.  Miles pass uneventfully until we exit at Vallet, three miles from our intended stop, but roadworks and a distracting comment from Ali has Nick taking the wrong exit on a roundabout and heading straight back to the motorway.  Snoopy recalculates a 12 mile round trip so we pull into a layby and look for other stops - no point going backwards.

Twenty miles on, requiring nearly 15 on the peripherique sud Nantes we leave the motorway and follow narrow leafy lanes to the canalside at le Pellerin, by the lock at la La Martiniere.

The canal was built in 1892, 15km in length but now used for ‘hydraulic regulation’.  Around the basin are autumnal trees and a large grassy park.  Old buoys and mooring gear line the wharves, now closed off with narrow road bridges.  The other side of the park the Loire estuary sees barges and small ships rumbling between Nantes and the sea.  

A tractor chugs by in front of the van with a small pony trotting behind, a slack rope between them.

By evening there are 8-10 motorhomes scattered around the various parking areas.

A lovely little spot only a short  way out of the bustle of Nantes and one we’ll likely visit again with more time to explore.

EVERYTHING LOOKS SO NORMAL...

 After shutting down the house and giving Christian the keys we set off around 13:30, but don’t get far.  Ali walks to the bins with some rubbish while Nick drives down behind but Ali remembers she hasn’t closed the drive gates so walk back.  The duck pond, so hard a few weeks ago is now full of clear water reflecting the autumn trees and sky.  We don’t get  far again, seeing Ash and Malc in their drive we stop for a chat before heading to Lathus for a bite to eat and fill with water.

It’s 18C as we drive to Montmorillon and on to Lussac, all looking green and pretty.   We turn off towards Gencay just in time to catch up with a strange 3-wheeled tractor carrying a load of tarmac.  The road has been gravelled recently and we follow it in a cloud of dust, past fields of sheep or dead sunflowers.  A few miles after crawling through Verneres it turns off and we have a clear view again.  We come into Gencay the same way as earlier this month and easily find the lakeside parking.

The lake is looking beautiful, smooth water reflecting autumnal trees and silver birch beneath a blue sky streaked with little white clouds.  Walkers, some led by dogs, do circuits of the bank and a family is having a picnic.  Ducks fly above the lake, often in threes, like fighter squadrons scrambling, woodpeckers laugh noisily in the trees behind, barnacle geese strut as they patrol the picnic area and a heron stands motionless.  In the shallows a pair of coypu slip through the water causing a tiny ripple on the glassy surface.

With all this beauty right before us it’s easy, just for a moment, to forget the unseen enemy, the havoc and disruption, the scares and the restrictions that coronavirus is heaping on this beautiful world.

The sun sets with a pink glow and no doubt will rise again tomorrow.

WELCOME HOME

We sleep in a bit later than intended, use the service point and set off on our last bit of convoy travelling, with 32 miles and 1.25 hours on the satnav, not that we need it from here.

Blue sky, more corn and sunflowers and rising temperatures accompany us along the way.  The river is sparkling as we cross the bridge into Lussac les Chateaux, where we paused for lunch 20 weeks ago.

Montmorillon is quiet and once we turn off towards the village we don’t pass another car the whole nine miles.  Entering the village we see work being done on the chateau walls and the gate is open.

Then a real treat; driving into our lane another field of sunflowers, 100m from home.

Pulling in beside the house all is looking well, thanks to Steve and his mower.  Sure there is lots of weeding and strimming, but nothing like the jungle we feared.

Ali opens up the house and finds the power has been interrupted at some point and the [minimal] contents, fruit from last year’s harvest and a small amount of meat has leaked across the floor.  It’s unpleasant but soon mopped up, although we decide to leave the house air and stay in the van tonight.  The temperature peaks at 32c meaning cold beers are welcome.

Christian comes over from No.6 with all of our mail they have kept for us, and he says he is pleased we are back and healthy.

We enjoy a lovely return home meal of caprese, steak with salad and French fries finished with tiramisu.

All is good, all quiet save for the contented clucks of Christian’s chickens going to roost, and as the sun turns the sky blood red, the evening chorus of frogs.

ANGERS [TRAFFIC] MANAGEMENT

A really peaceful night’s sleep, awaking to the rustle of the trees around us.

The river is a perfect mirror reflecting a myriad of greens from the trees and grassy banks. A couple of campers amble towards the river with fishing rods, apparently carp is common here.

Nick carefully programmes both satnavs to take us on the outermost route around Angers, as we know the normal ‘rocade’ [ring road] is often manic.

We set off and enjoy the scenery of our southerly loop, with frequent views of the river along shady avenues, until we get to the outskirts of Pont Ce and our exit from a roundabout is marked ‘Route Barre 700m’.  The satnav says to turn off in 700 yds so we follow other traffic towards the closure, which we reach before our turn off.  The only option is through the supermarket car park and follow the deviation signs.  It would help if they marked ‘Deviation Paris’, ‘Deviation Angouleme’ etc so you have an idea where you’re going, but no.

Fifteen minutes round the houses we arrive back at the roundabout.  Trying to programme Snoopy is fruitless, he hasn’t a clue the road is closed and just bongs at every ‘wrong’ turn.  We try to get to the toll-free section of the A87, east of us but south out of Angers, but just go in circles due to the avoid-toll settings which think all of A87 is toll.  Once more we return to the closed roundabout, backtrack where we came in and take the narrow road through the centre of Pont Ce.  Our arrival time is now showing 70 minutes later than it did when we started. 

Anyway, it’s a good job we stopped early yesterday, as our intended stop was Port Maillard, south east of Angers and would have used this non-route.

Back on familiar roads past Brissac Quince, where we stop for lunch, and Montrieul Bellay we enter the Loire vineyards, looking lush and green in the sunshine and promising a good crop.

South of the vineyards there are acres, no, square miles of golden cornfield and sunflowers.  We stop a number of times to enjoy the scenery together for a few minutes, you cannot share it from separate vehicles, and Ali misses the higher viewpoint from the van.  The sunflowers become a yellow blur as we drive past, every head facing the sun.

Eventually we see the first Montmorillon sign, but decide that getting home is just a bit too far with all our delays so we take the two mile detour off the main road to the aire at Nieuil l'Espoir where we stayed 4 years ago.  There are a few other vans in, but fewer than half the places taken.  It’s a hot, sultry evening and once the traffic calms down the sound of swallows is all around.