Ok view

Well, as views over beautiful countryside from hotels in the heart of medieval French villages go.... it's ok.

Despite the lovely evening reading some nonsense historical novel, and probably because of the Macdonalds dinner, I slept badly.

I'm not much one for quoting poetry. Mainly because of having a really bad memory for it - but this is one that I always try to bring to mind at that 'worrying hour' (and sometimes the boredom of trying to remember even just these few short lines can get me to sleep):

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse
and worse.

by Fleur Adcock

There were definitely lots of worse looking things stalking around my bed between about 2 and 6 this morning.

The bright sunshine and an early morning walk around the village lifted my mood.

With no house viewing appointments today, we toured around the area to get to know the place a bit better, including a couple of drive-bys of our possible new house. The French schools are still closed for half-term, so everything was as dead as yesterday. We searched one town and two large villages for somewhere, anywhere, for lunch. Even a sandwich would have done. Nothing doing. So we headed to the city - knowing there must be something open there... and there was - hurrah! A restaurant we've been to before so we knew all would be well... We got the menu, we chose, we sat, we sat, we waited, we called over the waiter, we watched as he cleared plates instead of taking our order, we waited a bit more, we watched the waiter standing doing nothing as we waved frantically at him. And, of course, we left. I'm not sure my French is quite up to pithy remarks thrown over my shoulder in the full earshot of the manager, but I tried.

You'll never guess where we ended up for lunch? Macdonalds. I do loathe it, really I do, but you have to say this for it: it's always there and you can always get served. Can't wait for this househunting business to be over. It's playing havoc with my waistline.

Home to the warm south, via a more circuitous route than usual through St Chinian to Beziers. Very windy. The wind blew us so fast we were even pulled over by the police... I have never been stopped by the police before (I wasn't driving) but I have to say it was a very civilised procedure. We pulled into an 'aire' and a very cheery policeman who spoke excellent English gave us a fine and sent us on our way with a happy "have a lovely time". No lecture about speeding, no compulsory speed education class.

We drove a little slower after that though. A lesson that a 90 euro fine delivered cheerfully is as effective as a lecture delivered haughtily.