Little Napoleon.

Sunday 1st October 2023. Beauchastel.

Into another month already. I’ve been in France for a month now and still going strong.

Our plan changed a little today we didn’t cycle up the Eyieux river. Janice suggested that we could go and visit the nearby city of Valence. Bon idee! I would have probably by-passed it tomorrow on the west side of the Rhône. We needed to go and have a pootle just to say we have been.

Firstly, we had to pop into La Voulte to get some daily bread. We stumbled across some ‘serious’ pétanque….

We cycled north to Valence and crossed the mighty Rhône again….

We had our picnic in the Jouvet Parc, next to this fountain.

The historic centre had some nice features….

As we cycled back we stopped at a cafe for a coffee. Janice has a repeated problem when ordering her preferred “cafe allongè avec lait froid”. She is repeatedly told that she should only ask for ‘cafe au lait’ but she usually gets an espresso with hot milk! The French can be funny about these things! It was just the same today despite being clear as to what she wanted, the server wouldn’t do what he was told!

We had our meal back at the van and I followed it with some Montelimar ‘nugget’. I think I have mastered the pronunciation on that one! It’s a long time since I have tried nougat but I really enjoyed it….especially the nutty version.

Scotland easily beat Romania last night to set up an exciting final pool match with Ireland. Australia look like they are out even if they beat Portugal tonight and South Africa should beat Tonga in the late game.

After tonight, the next game is New Zealand v Uruguay which we should be watching in Lyon on Thursday night. The match should test our ability to add up to 100, even if it isn’t very competitive.

Our great weather is continuing into October….we can’t believe it. No complaining here. It has been very hot at night time….so I have had to say “Not tonight Josephine…err, I mean Janice”!