The recent cold has meant lots of heating therefore high gas consumption. The nearest LPG is at Chatellerault.
We follow the scenic route towards Barrou. In places catkins are hanging thickly on the trees and a few other trees have blossom of some sort plus huge clumps of Mistletoe in the trees, something we have seen loads of this week is enough to make your lips numb!
Signs of an early spring, perhaps.
The scenery today has changed again, it's quite hilly and the fields are smaller areas, hedged or walled with scattered farmsteads and barns. At Barrou we stop by the bridge to watch the river flowing over a small weir.
Chatellerault is an ugly sprawl as we approach but the LPG is at a huge Leclerc on the edge of town. Being so big, the kiosk is not closed for lunch and we get our gas and diesel with no hold ups. While we are here Ali goes in to get a torch as we left the usual one behindat the house.
We head back on another scenic route towards La Roche Posay and head to the camperstop coordinates to stop for lunch, but the 'picnic area' turns out to be a private car park for the hotel/restaurant with 'non-residents will be towed away' notices. The other car park only allows motorhomes overnight. It's a pity, we'd like to have seen some of this thermal town but will have to find another way another time. We bounce along a poorly surfaced lane back to the main road and head for the next town, Yzeures-sur-Creuse, where a few squeezy streets between once grand but now flaking buildings lead us into a large, newly surfaced car park. We have the choice of any of the eighty or so spaces, it's completely empty.
After sandwiches we set off for Vicq-sur-Gartemp, out through a couple more tiny streets into the main part of Yzeures-sur-Creuse, where the roads are much more suited to our width.
The mid afternoon sun is casting soft contrast light over the fields, sparkling off the river as we drive alongside and adding a gloss to the wet, dark brown, recently ploughed soil.
We enter Vicq-sur-Gartemp across a pretty stone bridge and find the camperstop.
Ali takes a walk back to the town hoping to pick up a few leaflets so that we will know what to come back to another time.
She stops to photograph a grand art nouveau house and sees a woman working in the garden. They get chatting and the woman invites Ali to look around the garden and apologises that she cannot see inside today. The garden has a micro-climate and there are roses and jasmine in bloom plus palm trees. She explains the house, called 'Villa des Iles' was built in 1908 by M.+Mme Guyard to a design by F Milord [born in Angles sur Anglin] who was the architect for Chatellerault. Inside there are collections and decorations in art nouveau and art deco styles.
The woman gives Ali some pamphlets about the house and says there are occasions when the inside is open to the public. The house, as its name suggests, is surrounded by water and tiny islands where Ali watches a beaver or coypu swimming in the confluence of waters. Near the water is a tree with purple catkins.
The aire is not an unpleasant place but the service point has long been out of service. Since we are only 8 miles from Tournon St Martin, where we know the services work, we decide that will suit us better.
On the way we drive through Angles-sur-Anglin with more very narrow streets, which probably look lovely in summer as it is an award winning ville fleurie or flower town.
We escape without meeting any traffic and drive past more small farms and reach Tournon just as the sun is turning hazy and watery.
We park along from another moho, the fifth we've seen today and more than we've seen all week. Screens up, oven on, drinks poured and the sound of water over the weir across the road.
Funny to think we're only 4 or 5 miles from where we stayed on Tuesday.
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