En route

We left Lentillac as the church bell was ringing 8 a.m. and arrived in Noirmoutier at 4.30 p.m. ... long day.  It started when we were hitching up this morning and the plug that connects the roadlights of the car to those on the caravan came apart in my hand.  It was a 10 minute fix,  but not the ideal start to the day.  Mid journey we started to hear a scraping sound, which got worse when we went down into dips or braked.  It stopped, then started off again. We stopped, couldn't find what it was and we started off again.  It worsened some more; it sounded as if the whole of the underside of the car was scraping along the ground. We stopped again and this time we finally found the cause.  One of the mudflaps had partly detached itself and was trailing along the ground.  I wrenched it free from its danglitude and we continued on our way, it must have smashed itself on a stone or on one of those giant sleeping policemen of which French country towns are so fond.  As we got near to our destination, we had to negotiate some very small villages.  Approaching a bend on the entry to one, TomTom said "go left".  As I was about to turn into the corner, N said "no, turn right, no caravans allowed if you go left".  Too late. We found ourselves driving down an ever narrowing street and had to pull off into a car park.  It turned out to be the town hall car park. Should I go forward, should I try to reverse back?  I decided to do a do or die and drove down to the bottom end of the car park from where, with a bit of demon reversing I managed to do a three point turn!  (not easy with a van on the back).  Anyway, we got here eventually.  Noirmoutier is as lovely as ever in the thin September light and we had Paella and wine to relax away the cares of the day.  Postscript.  It would seem wrong not to mention that we passed the site of an horrific traffic accident.  It looked like  a head on, bits of cars strewn everywhere and what remained of the cars looked unrecognisable.  I only mention it because it looked like a fatal and I wouldn't want to record my day and gloss over someone else's tragedy.