I’ve just screwed up 😟. We’ve stopped in a very pleasant Ibis hotel in Pessac, a couple of kilometres south of Bordeaux and over a shared pizza I searched for and booked tomorrow night’s hotel, an albergue in St. Jean Pied de Porte. It has private parking, ideal in which to leave the car whilst we head off on our three day hike over the Pyrenees.

Unfortunately it’s not in St. Jean 😮. It’s also not an albergue 😩.

It’s called Auberge Mendi Alde – I really should read names more carefully. It’s some 14km from St. Jean so either we grab a taxi on Thursday morning or we drive in first thing and park somewhere secure. Options, options. Aargh.

Back to today.

France is big. It also likes dogs.

Dogs don’t get this sort of facility in British service stations.

Back to big.

It’s taken us the better part of a day, admittedly with lots of stops, to drive from Rouen to Bordeaux. The motorways are fantastic, hardly a car in sight for long stretches but that’s perhaps because they’re so expensive. But worth it. Billiard ball smooth, like the Spanish roads and decent Aires every 20km or so, they’re a pleasure to use.

We also stopped in St. Jean d’Angely where Cecile, Frank and Zak live.

They’ve managed to acquire just under a hectare of what used to be public land which specifically prohibits buildings. So they live in an assortment of caravans in various states. It’s peaceful, secluded, has space for Gamin and Auguste and best of all has a compostable toilet. 👌.

Angharad et al had arrived a couple of hours earlier and while the adults chatted, the girls and Zak got down to the serious business of playing together.

They have a beautiful Alsatian

But pride of place has to be given to Gamin, the king of donkeys. Bred hundreds of years ago to pull canons over mountains he’s an incredible chap, gentle and absolutely gigantic.

The top of my head is roughly level with his left nostril, thrust disdainfully towards me.

In the following video, Auguste’s gentle, dulcet neighing can be heard quite distinctly.

It’s such a pleasure to spend time with Cecile and Frank. Intelligent, thoughtful and creative, their way of life is a gentle remonstration that there is a way of living life that is genuinely in harmony with the natural world. Hopefully we’ll see them in Oxford sometime soon. I’d love to see how their work in mime would go down here.

Time to sleep, Bon voyage.