Back home again.

Driving down through France is always a pleasure. We found our Hotel quite easily, we managed to fill-up the car with petrol when needed, and apart from a few 'road works' that sent us down country lanes, we found our way without any glitches.

Our halfway-down Hotel is in Orléans. The Northern half of France is, frankly, not that interesting other than a few nice cathedrals. It's once one get's well into the Southern half that things change hugely. On the A20 'Occitane' motorway one finds the town of Brive la Gaillard. As one descends into the town one has a wonderful almost 180 degree view of the most magnificant landscape all around. It is as if one is descending from the peak of a very high hill. Beyond Brive one crosses the Dordogne Valley, then for us we turn off towards Gourdon, and then on to home.

The sun shone, it was warm, and Billy didn't complain once.

One thing we did notice when we turned off the A20 was that a lot of village signs were turned upside down. We imagined that some gang of cheeky wags must have been out on the sherbet, but there were so many of them that I think it must have been orchestrated. In fact I now know that it is a France-wide protest by French Young Farmers about the state of play. Good for them; Brussels has made an awful mess of European Agricultural policy.

The house is in a bad state, more was stolen than I'd imagined, and everything has a damp feeling about it. Goodness knows what the burglar had been doing here, he's been through everything. Luckily, certain things (that I won't mention) are still where I hid them. I was extremely relieved.

So, the fire has been lit, there is some wine in the house, and our water heater is working. I'll go shopping in the morning, and things will soon get back to normal.

For the moment, we're exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. Bon nuit!