Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire in Wissembourg. Exact location: 49.006508, 7.859342
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and hot (32 degrees)
We seem to have hit a warm spell, with the daytime high for the next 4 days forecast to be 32 degrees, with overnight lows between 17 and 19 degrees. That's not low enough to cool Bertie down, particularly when he has spent the day in full sunshine, like today.
But, back to this morning, when it was a far more reasonable 22 degrees (although awfully humid) when I went for a trot from Col de Pigeonnier. As I'd expected, my route was entirely through trees, but the going varied from wide vehicle tracks, to little walking paths and rooty/technical trails, so I had a good time and enjoyed the shade. What I didn't enjoy so much were the two flies that spent the whole time bouncing up and down next to my right eye, nor the one that flew straight into my left ear.
Forest trails
Mick had been out at the same time as me, but doing a shorter route, and we reconvened in Bertie for showers.
It was then theorectically a 5.5km drive down to Wissembourg, although a road closure and associated diversion sent us around the houses.
No sooner than Bertie's handbrake was applied, we had his external silver screen (his 'eye mask') in place. It makes such a big difference when parked facing the sun on such a hot day.
By then the temperature was such that going out for a walk wouldn't have been top of my list of things to do, but it was only going to get hotter, so off into town we went.
Historic town, pleasing on the eye
We lasted longer than I expected walking around, cooled at one point with an interlude in the church* and at another point with an ice cream each (coffee flavour for me, pistachio for Mick, if you were wondering). Aside from being a pretty place, with lots of half-timbered buildings**, one thing that struck me was quite how many eateries there were. As we were walking around at lunchtime, most people in the town seemed to be sitting at pavement tables.
We arrived in Wissembourg down to our last 5-litres of drinking water. Usually we would simply visit a service point and refill our four 5-litre containers, but the problem here isn't so much that the water costs €5 (making it more expensive than bottled water would be for the quantity we want), but that you need a Camping Car Park card to access it. We could, apparently, buy the card here, but that would be another €4. By comparison, in Germany we were buying beer (both alcohol and alcohol-free) at 50c per 500ml bottle...
We have spent the afternoon gradually baking in Bertie (with a brief trip outside for me when I fixed the handle on his toilet cassette, which came adrift a couple of days ago, but that only took me a minute or so), chucking a bit more heat into the environment with our laptops, and stirring that heat around with our two USB fans (which are surprisingly powerful).
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and hot (32 degrees)
We seem to have hit a warm spell, with the daytime high for the next 4 days forecast to be 32 degrees, with overnight lows between 17 and 19 degrees. That's not low enough to cool Bertie down, particularly when he has spent the day in full sunshine, like today.
But, back to this morning, when it was a far more reasonable 22 degrees (although awfully humid) when I went for a trot from Col de Pigeonnier. As I'd expected, my route was entirely through trees, but the going varied from wide vehicle tracks, to little walking paths and rooty/technical trails, so I had a good time and enjoyed the shade. What I didn't enjoy so much were the two flies that spent the whole time bouncing up and down next to my right eye, nor the one that flew straight into my left ear.
Mick had been out at the same time as me, but doing a shorter route, and we reconvened in Bertie for showers.
It was then theorectically a 5.5km drive down to Wissembourg, although a road closure and associated diversion sent us around the houses.
No sooner than Bertie's handbrake was applied, we had his external silver screen (his 'eye mask') in place. It makes such a big difference when parked facing the sun on such a hot day.
By then the temperature was such that going out for a walk wouldn't have been top of my list of things to do, but it was only going to get hotter, so off into town we went.
We lasted longer than I expected walking around, cooled at one point with an interlude in the church* and at another point with an ice cream each (coffee flavour for me, pistachio for Mick, if you were wondering). Aside from being a pretty place, with lots of half-timbered buildings**, one thing that struck me was quite how many eateries there were. As we were walking around at lunchtime, most people in the town seemed to be sitting at pavement tables.
We arrived in Wissembourg down to our last 5-litres of drinking water. Usually we would simply visit a service point and refill our four 5-litre containers, but the problem here isn't so much that the water costs €5 (making it more expensive than bottled water would be for the quantity we want), but that you need a Camping Car Park card to access it. We could, apparently, buy the card here, but that would be another €4. By comparison, in Germany we were buying beer (both alcohol and alcohol-free) at 50c per 500ml bottle...
We have spent the afternoon gradually baking in Bertie (with a brief trip outside for me when I fixed the handle on his toilet cassette, which came adrift a couple of days ago, but that only took me a minute or so), chucking a bit more heat into the environment with our laptops, and stirring that heat around with our two USB fans (which are surprisingly powerful).
After days of eating salad, I was going to make a cooked tea tonight, but with it being 35 degrees in Bertie, I couldn't face lighting the stove. So to the nearest supermarket we went, loitering in their aircon (long queue for the till? Yes please!) for longer than necessary before returning with cold food.
Now, at 8pm we are down to just over 33 degrees. We have a rule that we don't go to bed until it gets below 30. I wonder when that will happen tonight?
(*In the church we saw a fresco of St Christopher. At 11m tall this is, so I've since read on t'internet (so it must be true), the tallest painting of a person in France.
**Wissembourg is on the list of '100 most beautiful detours in France'. I'm not sure if something has been lost in translation, but we didn't detour to come here...)
(*In the church we saw a fresco of St Christopher. At 11m tall this is, so I've since read on t'internet (so it must be true), the tallest painting of a person in France.
**Wissembourg is on the list of '100 most beautiful detours in France'. I'm not sure if something has been lost in translation, but we didn't detour to come here...)
I have not been aware of us having a summer here at all.
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