No idea where I was last night. It was a big town somewhere in the UK and it seems that Esther who formerly ran a motel near where I live had separated from her husband and she started making up to me. I was playing right along because of course my real interest lay elsewhere. Nevertheless we were becoming really close and Esther, doing the holiday rota for this shop where she worked (and which my brother had some kind of connection) put me down for the last two weeks in July – the same holiday period as hers – and that cocked up all of my plans to go to Canada as usual in September.
So here I am, awake in my spec near Dole last night and, like most of my specs at the side of the main road, by the time that I wake up at 08:30 it’s totally deserted, despite the fact that when I came here last night it was heaving with lorries.
And as for this foam-rubber chair bed thing, I’ve slept on many worse things than this, that I’ll tell you. And while I’m sitting up here typing some notes, a roach coach pulls up. It’s just like in the UK.
so back on the road and as you might expect, about 5 minutes further on from where I parked, there’s a beautiful kind of lake with a parking area around it. That would have made a lovely place to have spent the night, if only I had pressed on a little.
Half a mile further on down the road I cross over into the département of the Jura, in the region of the Franche Comté. First village that I come to is called Chemin and this is well worth a stop, and for two reasons too.
I was going to say that there were two things to see here, but you will have to look hard to see them and I wonder how many people have missed them.
If you notice the grey pole just there underneath that tree, that is in fact the pole for a speed camera, would you believe, and the camera itself is well-hidden in the trees so that you can’t actually see it.
“Never you mind” I hear you say. “There is bound to be a warning sign somewhere in the vicinity”. And there is too, but you would never have guessed it because that too is hidden in the trees as you can (or can’t) see.
Quite frankly, I reckon that this is totally dishonest. There’s no point in having them if they are going to hide them in the trees like this if you ask me.
I’ve also been eating a little humble pie too today. I stopped to do some shopping at the LeClerc at Belfort and found to my dismay that when I was going on several weeks ago about the cost of a gas bottle for my camping stove being over €50, I … errr … was clearly not quite on the ball. That’s the cost for the bottle too, and an exchange refill is just €18:00. D’ohhhh. Anyway now I have some camping gas and I can cook.
I’ve also bought a new toy. I mentioned to Rob a couple of days ago that I was looking for a portable air compressor. In the old days you could buy compressors where you could detatch the tank and take it down the fields with the air line and inflate the wheel of your tractor. I haven’t seen one for years, but here in the LeClerc at Belfort they had a portable air compressor with a 6-litre tank and it’s all portable – you can carry the lot off down the field if you need to. And it runs off just 270 watts too so I can even charge it up on the inverter in Caliburn.
It took me ages to drive through Freiburg in Germany – there were enormous queues all over the motorway and the city was covered in roadworks too. Still, I made it through the town and over the mountains. Now I’m sitting here at Meersburg on the shores of the Bodensee looking across to Switzerland.
Tomorrow I’ll make my way on to Munich.
