We woke to a grey sky with some lumpy grey clouds floating over, but thankfully the rain seemed to have stopped. We walked up the hill into Rochechouart and found a boulangerie for some pain au raisins for breakfast, and I couldn’t resist the small snail pie which she offered to heat, but I had cold. Quite nice it was too, very garlicky and snaily. We wandered around the touristy center, wondered about the meteorite museum and explored the grounds of the large chateau which offered fantastic views over its weathered walls and past its darkly tiled spires. There must have been a meteor strike of note here at some point because they seem to make a point of calling things ‘de la meteorite’, but the thought of some burnt stones in a cabinet couldn’t persuade us to part with four euros each to find out in the museum.
There was a Champion supermarché just the other side of town so we walked the mile or two and stupidly got there at 2pm, of course, despite being a large supermarket the staff had better things to do until 3pm. So we sat ourselves down in the car park and waited. I’m glad we did though because as soon as we entered Kez noticed an English section with bottles of ale for a reasonable €2,17. Spitfire, Bishops Finger, Tanglefoot, all the greats. I could almost hear angels singing as I reined myself in and slipped just two bottles into the trolley. It’s been over a month since I had a decent ale and I was seriously looking forward to settling down with them. Later back at camp, the ground had dried out nicely from the day before, so I sat on one of the high landscaped banks that bordered our pitch, gazed over the lake below and cracked open my Bishops Finger. This is the life.
We idled away the rest of the evening watching a large wood ant heaving a moth around, apparently lost. It seemed to be going in circles but we had to admire its grit as it yanked, tugged and hauled a load five times its size through the awkward vegetation on our pitch. Never did find out if it made it home with its prize.