Sunday 21st December

Today we were heading for a place called Vignoles – which was nearly 400kms from where we were in Avignon. We set off on our journey – not particularly early as we had to wait until 9 to pay for the camping ground. So somewhere between 9:30 and 1 we headed off for what we knew would be a long trip. We drove through Lyon – which looked like a nice city from what we could see! And carried on along the motorway to where we wanted to be. I think it was about 3 when we arrived – it seems to take us ages to travel, even though most of it is along the motorway. It was pretty windy initially but that quickly died down which was good.

When we arrived at the camping ground, my conversation went something like this:

Me: “vous parlez anglais?” (do you speak English)
Him: “Non, no Anglais”
Me (thinking ahh crap! Lol, this had hardly ever happened – usually they have been able to speak a little): “ahhh, un soir….um…” hoping I was saying one night, pointing to the campervan”
Him: “wee” then rattled off what I think was asking about how many people
Me: “deux um…adults?” indicating with my hand that I meant a tall person… a person much taller than me HAHAHA, but trying to get my point across! “un….” Showing again with my hand child.
Him: “wee”

Again conversing away in French that I had no hope in hell of understanding – I thought we was asking how old cam was to which I responded “quatre” , then it became clear that he thought I meant I had 4 children with me. He kept talking, I kept looking confused trying to get the point across that there was just one child “J’ai un fils…un” (I have a son…1) LOL, desperately looking in my phase book for anything that could be useful!

In the end he got out a piece paper and drew a little picture LOL, of two big stick men and one child and pointed to them saying “mama, papa, enfant”, “wee!” I exclaimed, moments before I had been thinking I was going to have to go out and drag Col and Cam from the Campervan to get my point across! Under the child he wrote the number 4 “wee!” I exclaimed again – thinking that surely he was talking about his age, not the number of children or there would be 4 little stick children in his picture LOL.

So finally we got everything sorted out and we had somewhere to stay for the night!