Having forgone the excellent shower last night due to a large spider that hung menacingly from its web near the ceiling, Kez was outraged to see the lady from the Dutch caravan strolling back from an entirely different direction with a towel around her neck.
‘Where does she think she’s been!?’ she barked with hands on hips and her uniquely cute ginger browed frowny pout.
‘I think she thinks she’s been to a shower we didn’t know about’ I replied. ‘Probably a sparkly clean spider free one.’
With that Kez stomped off to find out for herself even though we were nearly packed and ready to go. She returned much happier having discovered that the Dutch lady had indeed showered in a block we hadn’t noticed but that it was just as spider infested and unsuitable for an arachnaphobe. The sun was strong this morning so we slapped on plenty of the factor 25 that Nancy had kindly bought us as a leaving gift and set off for a ride down the river to Confolens. Some stiff climbs and drops took us through the winding lanes onto the straighter D road which was much flatter as it ran along a ridge to the East of the Vallée Vienne. We’d had no breakfast so when we rolled into a town with a boulangerie I bought a couple of fancy cakes which we ate messily on the wall outside. Sights today included canoeists practicing turns on some gentle white water, a charming horse and donkey friendship who watched us pass amusingly, and some impressive rocky cliff faces. We lunched in the corner of a field full of black shiny plastic wrapped round bales which looked quite alien in the green landscape and after some more hot climbs and speedy descents (36mph at one point) we found our strange little camp site just North of Confolens. Run by a friendly Dutchman called Arthur, it was a pretty hillside affair with no marked pitches, ‘go wherever you like’ and nice fruit trees. Chickens and goat penned nearby and a rickety wooden shower block that was thankfully spider free and clean. Still without supplies for dinner I left Kez setting up camp and cycled into Confolens for ingredients to make a good pan of chili which we cooked and ate luxuriously on a picnic table looking out across the hills.