Nous sommes en France

Or something. I used up my annual quota of French earlier calling a music shop in a fairly random small town to see if they had noise cancelling headphones. They did. And now so do we. (Well actually that might mean that they don't now but I don't know). The problem with the mangled Franglais on the phone was that 5 minutes later I was having to do it face to face. But needs must and all that.

Aside from that Challenge Anneka (again if you recall) moment it has been a remarkably smooth first travel day. And we arrived in our evening destination of the beautiful town of Chartres in time for a dog walk in the evening sun. Actually, thanks to the power of blip I had remembered the great idea we had last year of the non-driver getting out a mile or so away from the hotel and walking the last part. Anna and I did that and once Albi had calmed down after the excitement of being out of the car it was a very lovely walk around the town. This was almost a shot of Anna cartwheeling in front of the cathedral but I really liked the light on the market structure.

In total contrast to last year when our first night was spent finding a hotel in the dark, walking a dog in the dark and begging the hotel bar for snacks as we were so delayed tonight has been outrageously civilised with a room service glass of beautiful red wine and a steak dinner following the walk.

The first day of migration can be declared successful I think and now we are within the region of 21hrs to the SooB cocktail hour...

Salut!
Lesley x