DAY 5 - 11
Rest in Roujan
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DAY 5 - Sunday 15 April
No driving - a few days' rest!
Lovely and sunny at last
Lazy late start. Our first since we set off. Then we set of for an oyster shack down a rutted track. They only serve oysters and mussels, nothing else - at all.
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It seats about 200 people. Empty when we got there early, obviously no need to have booked. Wrong! By 1.00 is was full to the rafters. And they only serve poxy oysters and wine and I don't eat oysters. Even bread was an odd request.
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Back for a lazy afternoon and wander into Roujan to pick up a Pizza Dinner
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DAY 6 - Monday 16 April
No driving
Lovely and sunny again
Up for a long country walk for Sara and I. We set off at 11.00 to the village of Neffies, it's closed, no cafe, no bar, apparently it is Monday (??), so we detour to Gabian (making three hours non stop tabbing).
I use an amazing app called Ulmon Pro. It is an offline map that shows tracks as small as a yard wide, All over the world. It weirded out guides in Vietnam on the Chinese border. It knew more than they did. Anyhoo, it took us on a great walk along stunningly beautiful cart tracks through vineyards and hills. BUT it would never have taken Sara's shortcut, never. We could see the final village. The mapped route was ahead. But NO, there was a track that looked shorter. Half a kilometer down this 'short cut', and just short of our destination, we were faced with a wide river in flood. The bar was just 200 yards away after three hours walking. Sara could taste it. Go back? Cross a flooded river two feet deep? Smell that beer? CROSS THAT RIVER!!! Brave girl. To be honest if I had been alone I would have backtracked. Not with Sara. Hand in hand through the torrent we fought our wet way, on to the beer!!!
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Job done. Beer sorted. Back home for a quiet night in. Apart from me having to print off pages of translation on why the f**k our BMW roof no longer opened and lots of excuses as to why it had an odd after-market modification that allowed me to open it from 50 yards away with the key fob. I knew that mod would be a mistake. Sadly so did Sara, and she did keep mentioning it.
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Roll on Wednesday and the BMW dealership fixing it!
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DAY 7 - Tuesday 17 April
No driving, cos ours is a two seater, so Gary drew the short straw and the peaked chauffeur cap.
Sunny as a sunny thing all day
The plan was to drive up into the mountains and check out the Orb River for Kayaking. No need to phone ahead. Why do that before driving for an hour? Wimpish.
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Of course when we got there in lovely sunshine the fact that it has rained for 10 days solid meant the river was a torrent. No kayaks, not for a week. Deterred? Not us - we simply Googled the best restaurant in the area. That was closed. What is it with French restaurants and closing at lunchtimes? No matter, we tried the next one down. That was a fair hike, 10 miles away into the mountains so off we set. No idea if it would be good, bad or indifferent.
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It was the best one of those choices, good , good, good!
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A magical location in a tiny village up a cart track called Mauroul. We were the only diners. The food was London quality top end restaurant plus. The service perfect. The cheap house wine better than our best at The Roffen. And nobody else there, not one person, in sight in this picture postcard village.
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Then back via a couple more bars to home.
The Auberge de Mauroul is the tine spec in the middle of the picture, up the funny white track. Sorry 'Cul de Sac'. No restaurants in any of the quite large villages nearby were open but 10 miles out of any village, 2 miles up a track, this one was. And it was superb.
DAY 8 - Wednesday 18 April
No driving
Sunny all day 24C (same day as 28C heatwave in UK)
BMW to dealers in Bezier at 8.30 to give them an early start and then off to visit the Neuf Ecluses (9 Locks) on the Canal du Midi followed by checking out another possible kayak venue on the river. Nice Locks, shame about the kayaking. Another no go due to the river being in spate. Lunch at a lovely canal side restaurant and back to BMW or 4.00pm as nothing heard from them all day.
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Car parked in exactly the same place. Not even looked at it! Not a happy driver. five days to get the appointment. Nine hours translating the roof problem into French, all to no avail. Good mechanic with good English takes charge, code reads the car, clears all codes and says: "If you lived here we would say take the car and see if the fault returns, adieu". I say lets give it a good go first and raise and lower the poxy roof 20 times with no problems. At least his advice came free and it seemed pointless to tear the car apart on the off chance of finding a fault. Fingers crossed then!
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DAY 9 - Thursday 19 April
No driving
Lovely and sunny again
Rest day and a visit to a Chateau just a few clicks away. As this area is lovely, but not a top flight area, I was expecting a nice place. Wow! What we got was Soho House, five star, boutique hotel and spa - in the middle of nowhere. And at Roffen Club prices (by that I mean extremely reasonable, just in case you did not get the reference!!)
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Chateau Saint Pierre de Serjac near Puissalicon, www.serjac.com. Top quality restaurant with lunch for E25 for three courses, wines E19, 36 self catering houses each with a private pool, the works. What a nice surprise.
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The boss Karl and all the senior staff were Irish or British, even better. Mrandmrssmith.com looking around on same day. Top quality UK agents. Check it out on their site for even better pictures.
DAY 10 - Friday 20 April
No driving
Lovely and sunny again?
A nice calm day with a visit to look at the Villa under consideration for 'Sara's Tours' first trip to the Languedoc. Seven ladies for a week of art classes, wine tastings and kayaking. Yes, an eclectic choice. Lovely villa though, and in walking distance from our find of 'Soho House', the Chateau from yesterday - result!!
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Then on to Pezenas for a very unusual lunch. Now I NEVER post photos of my food, I find the concept odd. But having said that here is a photo of my food. That is because we ordered four courses - and they all came on one plate. Now that is ODD!! Hence worthy of a snap of my snap.
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We finished the day with 'Aperol', a local custom where you pop round to friends who entertain just for a couple of hours with drinks and nibbles. Watch the sun go down and then off you pop. Lovely Aperol at Zara and Chris's amazing house.
DAY 11 - Saturday 22 April
No driving
Lovely and sunny again?
An actual REST day. No visits, no driving, a barbecue lunch, sunbath, read books, chill. Almost like being on holiday.....
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Then pack. Discard 20% of Sara's luggage and 1% of mine to ensure there is no chance of the bulging suitcases fouling our temperamental convertible hood zone in the boot. Then clean the car, and generally get ready to hit the road at 8,00 on Sunday.