Our mornings have hitherto been a somewhat casual, relaxed affair. French time being an hour ahead of where it sensibly should be, 8:00 AM feels like 7:00 AM. We have usually managed to drag ourselves into action having had the obligatory cuppa by 9:00 AM (which feels like 8:00 AM, of course).

This morning was very different as we were stirred from slumber by a fearful roaring at about 7:30 AM (a.k.a. 6:30 AM) seemingly not far outside the caravan. A suspicion developed as to the source of the roar and a glance out of the window supported the suspicion that we were being buzzed by a low-flying hot air balloon. Hurriedly slinging on some clothes so as not to upset the other campers, we rushed out to see three or four balloons in relatively close proximity. These were rapidly followed by a hot air chicken (well, rooster complete with comb) and a hot air strawberry. The balloons, poultry and fruit were launching from a field about 200 metres away. We counted 14 fans of les frères Montgolfier in all, including representatives from France, Britain, Switzerland and Belgium; quite an international collection.

Follow that, if you can. We couldn’t, really. The early morning brightness deteriorated into cloud cover, though it stayed dry. We pedalled into Mon-prés-Chambord for a newspaper to keep an eye both on the weather forecast (looks pretty grim for the next few days) and the fuel price protests (the lorry drivers are joining the farmers and fishermen). A brighter interlude occasionally drifted by, including a very obliging one for lunch.

The later afternoon was quite pleasant, too, so we pedalled off through the forest to Bracieux (where we had failed to get to yesterday because of an approaching shower) and Villesavin before returning before yet another blackening sky. Thus far, this one has not produced anything beyond a threat. (Correction: I’ve just inserted the pictures and it is again raining at us.)

We are in danger of growing roots waiting for the weather to settle so we’ve paid up and are moving off somewhere tomorrow, hoping for some quiet Sunday driving.

Another morning of early mist. The last morning like this quickly turned into one of rain which in turn became persistent. We hoped this would be different and started with a visit to the local supermarket for some badly needed supplies while we gave the morning a chance to decide what it was up to.

Fortunately the sun did its work and burned off the mist. We seemed to be in one of those areas where, as clouds approached, they dissipated – the smaller ones at least. All around us, halfway to the horizon, the cloud bank was clearly considerably thicker, if not solid, but we seemed to be in a relatively settled area. ‘T was time to leap on the bikes and return to Chambord illuminated by sun. Photographs of this sort with dull grey skies just don’t cut it. It’s about a ten mile round trip to Chambord which we could comfortably fit it in before lunch.

Having returned and after a lazy lunch in the sun without having made either of our Lafuma chairs collapse, we were still under our localized hole in the clouds and basking in sunshine. It feels so much more French in the sunshine. This area has a network of absolutely excellent cycle tracks so we encouraged our legs to spring into action again and cycled off on some of our favourite routes to do a circuit to Mont-prés-Chambord, Cheverny, Bracieux and back to Huisseau-sur-Cosson.

On the way to Cheverney we paused to admire a hen harrier working some fields. This year seems a little odd, apart from the less than settled weather. France is usually lousy with buzzards whirling around the skies but we have seen very few. We have, however, seen more hen harriers. They behave very differently from buzzards, cruising quite low and slowly over fields looking for a spot of lunch.

As we were leaving Cheverny for Bracieux, there seemed to be a very nasty, black averse (shower) approaching. Disturbingly, it was clearly approaching a little faster than we seemed to be cycling. Since we had unwisely left our washing out in the sun and it would be dry by now, a little panic set in and we chose to cut short our trip and hasten back to save it. Success, we beat the averse.

After rescuing said laundry and after a refreshing beer or two, our hole in the sky closed and we got our threatened dowsing.

Yours truly clambered onto his bike and pedalled the 6 miles or so to Mont-prés-Chambord and back in search of bread and an Aujour d’hui newspaper. The paper publishes five days’ worth of weather maps and that’s what we wanted. Naturally, the further in the future it gets the less reliable the forecasts become but it gives us an idea. Today didn’t look great.

On the return leg, I took a cross-country route and was having great fun until a dry-looking patch of sandy soil turned out to be more like wet quicksand from the recent rains and the wheels threw mud all over my bike, clean shirt and cycling trousers. Oops! Doctor Carol prescribed a swift striptease (unfortunately me, not her) and plunged my soiled clothes into a bucket of hot, soapy water.  Since the weather seemed OK so far, it was on with a new T-shirt.

As the morning progressed, things seemed to be brightening up, despite the forecast. Since walking in potential showers seems preferable, to us, to cycling in potential showers, we decided to try one of the local walking routes. As usual, from the point of view of nature, France didn’t let us down. We saw meadow fritillary and wall butterflies and, unidentified, some caterpillars which seemed to be descending from trees on silken threads, twisting and spinning in the gentle breeze. I have no idea what they were but they were intriguing to watch.

After a late lunch, a quick siesta caused yours truly to make his nice new Lafuma reclining chair collapse whilst reclined, spilling coffee all over the recently donned nice clean T-shirt. Doctor Carol prescribed a striptease (unfortunately me, not her) and plunged my now coffee-stained T-shirt into a bucket of hot, soapy water. On with another clean T-shirt. Three years ago, Lafuma had a perfectly serviceable design and were regarded as the Rolls Royce of camping chairs. Last year they started welding the seams instead of sewing them – the welds separated on us in a couple of weeks. This year they are again sewing the seams (bravo, Lafuma) but now the reclining arms appear to separate too readily. The design was perfectly good. Why feel the need to mess around with an erstwhile perfectly good design?

The weather looked reasonably settled and, fancying a little more exercise, we cycled back to the B+B hotel armed with Carol’s mot de passe to try our luck posting the various saved blog entries. Marvelous, success – this time it worked. The signal strength was up and down but it never actually dropped us.

Flush with posting success, we returned for some showers and an evening meal of grilled duck breast with John’s special peppercorn mix and some ratatouille.

Weather is perverse. After yesterday’s completely solid and very low cloud thrashing rain at us all day long, there were stars in the hitherto largely unseen sky for some of the night, at least. This morning, there were very brief interludes of blue with the occasional burst of strange brilliance, but we were back to about nine tenths cloud moving briskly by in a moderate breeze. If there’s a storm system moving through, as there undoubtedly is, where on Earth does it go overnight?

Spirits already lifted by the lack of thrashing rain, we were sitting having coffee #1 when our spirits got another lift as the now unmistakable (to us) flutey whistle of a golden oriole came drifting in on the breeze. These are summer migrants, mostly heard rather than seen, in Europe from May to August only (sensible birds), and are one of the reasons we enjoy France so much in June.

The day continued to improve, even the poppies in the cornfield outside Billy’s pitch had perked up, so we decided to skip breakfast and get out on the bikes while we could. Before leaving home, Carol had discovered a McDonalds in Vineuil, about 6 miles from us, which supposedly had a wi-fi hook-up. Having several days worth of postings, dear reader, off we went with the lap top. Following one of the excellent cycle routes here, we son navigated our way through Vineuil and found the McDonalds complete with wi-fi sign – closed for refurbishment until 6th June. Maybe they’d left their wi-fi turned on? No such luck. Bother! Unbelievable – the one time we’d had the foresight to check and it was out of commission.

Beginning our homeward journey for lunch, we stumbled across a B+B Hotel (more of a motel) advertising free wi-fi. So, we snuck along the fence line and lo, a weak signal. It needed an authorised sign-on, though. Carol filled in an e-form but no joy. Start home again. Back in the centre of Vineuil, Carol heard her mobile phone chirp. We stopped, she examined the phone and lo, an SMS message containing a password for the B+B hotel wi-fi. Strewth! So, having come this far, we turned around and returned, uphill, I hasten to add, to the fence outside the B+B. Finding the weak signal again, we managed (I think) to post our first blog entry (Amateur Hour), then go for the second and lost the signal. Drat! Repeated attempts to re-establish connection failed so we gave up and returned home. Could they have powered the connection down for lunch? It was 1:00 PM. Oh well, a 17 mile round trip to make a single blog posting. No matter, it was a pleasant ride.

The day had continued to improve and we had a very pleasant lunch of grilled butternut squash, serrano ham, lettuce and shaved ossau irraty cheese. That needed another bike ride to negate the calories so, in the late afternoon, we popped up the road to visit chateau de Chambord before returning for a couple of pastis and dinner.

An unexpectedly terrific day, even if the Internet stuff was a tad more than frustrating.

The rain started gently soon after we awoke. It was expected and, as the shops were now all open following the holiday Monday, we decided to take the car to the Intermarché at Mont-prés-Chambord to fill up with food and diesel.

The rain had increased a little in force as we left and all around looked a very even grey. Until the afternoon, the rain would stop for about 3 minutes, then return slightly heaver. That, at least, allowed for brief sorties outside. By late afternoon there were no gaps, the rain wash thrashing constantly and waterfalls were streaming down Billy’s windows. By early evening the lightening and, I assume, thunder had joined the now ever more forcefull rain. I say "assume" thunder because the rain beating on the roof like the hammers of hell was so deafening that we really couldn’t hear anything else.

We had the foresight to buy some comfort food, choucroute garni Alsacienne (sauerkraut, smoked sausages, smoked ham and potatoes), which we have recently finished. It’s 9:30 PM now and I can hear a blackbird singing so the rain must have eased. The crickets have joined in and are singing, too. The sky still looks blacker than the ace of spades, though, so I suspect this little orage (storm) has not finished with us yet.

The forecast does not look good for the rest of the week, either.

The forecast for Monday and Tuesday wasn’t great – thunder storms floating around – so it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted by some clouds scudding in a moderate breeze accompanied by some sunshine.

We are about 3 miles from Mont-prés-Chambord which has at least one of the finest boulangeries in France (personal opinion). They have bread to die for and some terrific pain au raisin that go down particularly well for breakfast. Off the car with the bikes and off, once more against that old head wind, into Mont-prés-Chambord to see what we could get. Unfortunately, this was a Bank Holiday Monday and "one of the finest boulangeries in France" was closed. Darn! Never mind, a little further down the main street there’s another perfectly acceptable boulanger which was open. (Towns with multiple choices tend to alternate cover for the holidays. The French do not do well deprived of bread.) Carol went in while I stayed avec les velos, and eventually emerged with a fine baguette and a couple of more-calories-than-it’s-wise-to-count almond croissants.

Returning via a different route, this time with wind assistance, we clocked up our first 7.5 miles and settled down to a late breakfast of coffee and almond croissants. At least the cycling would offset a small portion of the 3,296 calories in each cardiac arrest package.

After a bit of putzing, we changed to go for some more serious cycling in a desperate attempt to reduce our calorie footprint. Swap sun and scudding clouds for very British drippy, nuisance rain. Oh well, at least it started before we left.

Settling down for lunch, we discovered the beginnings of a structural failure in Billy. One of two tiny cast-metal brackets securing our front drawer unit and occasional table to the front bulkhead had fractured. Enter stage right caravan repair man. Some grovelling about on hands and knees armed with a torch produced a diagnosis: the bottom of the drawer unit was clearly supposed to be resting on a couple of battens but was actually hovering about 0.5cm above them. The weight, therefore, was hanging on nothing more than the two (now one) insubstantial, cast-metal angle brackets. How Bailey managed to assemble it this way I simply cannot imagine. A levitation device, perhaps? Potential solution: remove it completely, let gravity take its course, and drop it the 0.5cm so that its weight is taken on the aforementioned battens, then refit the remaining intact bracket, with some suitable packing. It should be man enough simply to stabilize it as opposed to supporting it. I’ve tried Araldite on the broken bracket but haven’t tried it yet. It may be time to hit Monsieur Bricolage to search for a substitute.

At least it gives something to do while the weather is being irritating. Why can’t we build things correctly, though?

The rain was still with us when we awoke at the Aire des Deux Caps. It eased off and eventually stopped shortly afterwards, though.

One of the reasons we like using this service area, apart from its proximity to the ferry port, is that it has decent washing facilities and a reasonable cafe for that first French breakfast of coffee and pain au chocolat. Now we know we’re in France.

Suitably refreshed and awakened, it was time to figure out what to do. If the ports are being blockaded there could be fuel shortages developing. We could stay in Normandy within one tank’s worth of the channel ports until we know what’s going to develop. Why though? Do we want to spend a long time in Normandy? Pleasant though it is, no. Anyway, there will be countless other folks dans le même bateau, will there not? We’re here for 6 weeks, for Christ’s sake; the French government surely couldn’t let fuel problems persist that long. Utter anarchy would result. (Come to think of it, that sounds very French.) On with plan A and see what happens.

Driving in France is a dream because the roads are better (smoother) than our pot-holed excuses for roads, and a lot less crowded. Driving in France on Sunday is even better because the roads are even quieter since most of the truck drivers don’t work on Sunday. Pulling a caravan through France on Sunday sucks because almost every fuel station other than those on the autoroutes is shut. (To be fair, there are lots of 24 hour automated pumps but do they take British credit cards? Absolutely not!)

We had an irritating head wind which negated a lot of any potential benefit from down hill sections and the Calais – Rouen autoroute is very hilly so we were sucking down very expensive diesel at an alarming rate. We’d never make the 300 miles on a tank like this. We filled up at the last autoroute service station before Rouen, though, and that gave us the range to get to Huisseau-sur-Cosson, just south of Blois on La Loire, passing all those closed fuel stations.

Today was exceptionally quiet. This was quietness redefined. Having left Rouen, we headed directly south to Blois and almost had the road to ourselves. Occasionally a vehicle would pass us going north or overtake us going south but, for the most part, we were alone – literally not a car in sight. This never, but never, happens in England, not even at 2:00 AM. It was so quiet, it was eerie. Had everyone else been incinerated in a nuclear holocaust? Someone had suggested the locals are just not driving much because of the fuel prices. Maybe it’s true.

After a blissful drive, albeit struggling against an adverse wind, and a brief pause for a bite of lunch, we pulled into our camp site at Huisseau-sur-Cosson at about 3:00 PM – five minutes before a Dutch caravan. This is unusual. Our fortuitous timing enabled us to snaffle the currently unoccupied prime pitch on the edge of the site with views over the corn fields under the occasional circling buzzard. A lot of nifty caravan reversing was required but we got in and Billy settled down very happily indeed.

We’ll be comfortable here and can cycle to our hearts content for absolutely everything. This is shut a pleasant part of France, I could happily live here so any length of stay is no hardship. Let’s see what happens.

How we used to get ready for a major expedition to France when we were working, I just do not know. Somehow, in a couple of evenings alone, each following a full day’s work, we’d collect the caravan, wash it, load it, load the car, leave everything ready and, on the final Friday evening, load the fridge, hitch up and get down to Dover in time for a 9:30 PM ferry. I guess our minds were fully focused on the job.

Now things are very different; time is not a burning issue. Now we can collect the caravan on, say Thursday morning, wash it in the afternoon and, if we feel like it, casually load a few things either in the car or caravan, do a bit more on Friday when the mood takes us, finish off on Saturday and dawdle down to Dover for any darn ferry we like, in this case, one at 7:30 PM – nominally, at least. We tried to increase the pressure on ourselves by, on Saturday morning, first returning our new Lafuma chairs and then returning to purchase the very same pair of chairs back again (please don’t ask!) but there was still plenty of time wasn’t there? Traffic should be light on Saturday afternoon and we didn’t need to leave home until about 4:00 PM, did we?

About 10 miles out, Carol started questioning whether she had locked the back door. A quick phone call to our neighbours reassured us that it was, indeed, locked. Fine. About 20 miles out I suddenly realized that, having removed the boot cover to facilitate loading, I had carelessly left said boot cover languishing in the garage instead of covering the somewhat valuable contents of our boot. Drat! Double drat!! It’d take an hour to return home and get back to where we currently were. Not time for that and make our ferry. I did have a boot liner which is black and, given suitable support improvisations, could be pressed into service as a cover. OK, good, keep going. About 60 miles out at the Dartford Crossing, I was calmly watching speedy solo cars overtake our lumbering caravan outfit. Some of said cars had euro number plates, others had a GB plate afixed. I had neither. TRIPLE DRAT!!! My sexy magnetic removable GB plate was also languishing in the garage. No matter, easily fixed – buy one at Dover in a service station as we top up with diesel.

Strewth – £1.31 a litre at both filling stations in Dover! This wouldn’t be a captive market, by any chance, would it? Oh well, so be it, 45 minutes to ferry departure so fill up, buy a GB sticker, and drive on to check in. Departure time, 8:45 PM. "Have we missed the 7:30 PM ferry?" "No, it’s running an hour late." "OK, thanks."

About eight coach-loads of revolting rug rats greeted us in the ferry boarding lines. Blasted bank holiday weekends and school holidays. We really should have known. In previous years we have travelled either a week before or a week after this. The ferry got even later (due, supposedly, to previous industrial action in France) and it actually departed at 9:05 PM. £14 each got us into the Club Lounge, mainly to avoid the bedlam of the screaming horrors running riot all over the boat but also for a desperately needed glass of bubbly and some coffee and biscuits. We at least now have no smoking in public; now it’s time to address children-free facilities for the civilized travelling public, too. According to the steward, several French ports remain blockaded to target the oil refineries. What the hell, I’m on the the side of the militants this time.

Disembarking at 11:40 PM French time, unwelcome rain was falling but we pulled in to our favoured overnight autoroute service area, the Aire des Deux Caps, safely at about midnight for a reality-correcting bottle of vino and a picnic. It rained pretty much all night but the noise on Billy Bailey’s roof lulled us to sleep.

We used to be able to do this on autopilot. Let’s hope it was just "one of those days" and that it doesn’t become "one of those trips".