Chinon to Ste Colombe

Woke in floral attic room of Hotel Diderot, Chinon; the hotel of a hundred homemade jams and marmalades. So... good breakfast in the yard.

Head South almost at random, a dog-leg route across what the call 'La France Profonde'. Here be countless lovely Chateaux, sweet flower-bedecked villages, pretty cows, sunflowers, melon fields, cornfields, stands of maize, and no bloody traffic whatsoever on one of the busiest days of the year.

Lunch at Melle. Picked at random. Beautiful. But then they don't do ugly anywhere here.

Boy Racer loves the roads. He can really drive. Zoom Zoom. We have the thumping rock I used to play to myself in the 70's in my van; 'Brown Sugar' etc. The top down, the sun warm, the wind in the remains of the hair. Not much wrong with today! Blessed. Truly. A sudden need 'to go'! In these vast treeless fields...where? ... and suddenly right ahead of us beside the road, middle of nowhere, materialises a green Tardis ... or Portaloo, just where needed, when needed. France, I love you!

Arrive just in time for Lindsay's birthday dinner up at Le Comptoir de St Genes. The place is packed. Lot of English. All drinking Côtes de Castillon or Laithwaites Sauvignon.

Fine night on the terrace. Eight satellites and three shooting stars before bed.

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