Millau to Carcassonne...

Up and out early this morning. We were right opposite a mahoosive supermarket so we decided to do the shopping there. They even had maps cause the Fat Dads decided to take the maps with them and the rich bitch flash car sat nav is pretty shite so we bought some maps for us too. They’re super helpful and Ary is most definitely a map man! I get a raised eyebrow when I switched to my mobile phone maps cause he doesn’t trust them either.

We drove under the bridge this morning and it’s even spectacular from the bottom. It somehow looks even bigger from that angle. It truly is spectacular. If you get a chance to visit then you should absolutely go round to the visitor centre, not least to see the Ghengis sticker that’s now on the signpost. I’ve been a bit shit at remembering to stick them places so I put the little book rxs gave me on the dashboard so I’d remember to stick them along the way. There’s one in Amiens, Paris, Millau, Carcassonne, Barcelona (yes I’m ahead of myself again!) and I’ll keep going until we get to Morocco.

We stopped for lunch in La Caune, in the car park of an old deserted shop and set up our table and got the food out. Cooked chicken goes down very well with the lads, they like it better when it’s not dry though. The local Police stopped to ask us what we were doing… I think perhaps they thought we were setting up some sort of stall with our old garden chairs (which incidentally have been very well used) but I think we managed to convince them that we were simply having a picnic, albeit in the least pretty spot we’ve found but at least it wasn’t up a hill!

We passed through a lot of pretty places along the way before arriving in Carcassonne, it’s really very pretty here. Our hotel was lovely and had the biggest bath so while I was washing up the dishes and the boy’s bottles I thought I’d be kind and draw (apparently this is the correct term!) a bath for Ary. He’d gone for a wander to cool off, tired and grumpy pretty much described our mood by the end of the day so we decided to skip dinner and arse the free bottle of wine that I got in Amiens. He returned the favour and drew me a bath when he’d finished and I have to say that it was just what I needed. It’s actually the cleanest I’ve felt since I left home. My hands are absolutely torn to shreds so I’m sort of glad we stopped to buy some heavy duty gardening gloves. Lifting and carrying bags, unhitching and rehitching the trailer and generally stabbing myself with the really sharp kitchen knives has taken its toll. I’ve spent most of the week with a variety of plasters stuck to my thumb and finger, coupled with at least ten broken nails, it’s fair to say my hands hurt. I thought my bag was heavy. When you’re lifting ten rather large bags every day, twice a day, it starts to show.

Tonight we sent the boys off for dinner without us. John, a fellow blipper (fortytwo) joined us for the next few days so he was a welcome new face to the team with the cheek to match. I like a bit of banter so it was nice to have some new chat. The discussions of pi have gone right over my head. Wheel rotations and disposable waste are not high on my list for banter. I'm much preferring the arse chat with Campbell.

Ary and I skipped dinner, drank wine and went to bed relatively early for a nice change. I don’t think I’ve been so consistently knackered for quite some time. I’m still dreaming of my security blanket and my own bed. As you can see from the photo, Ary took the opportunity of a wait up at the top of a hill to have 40 winks (again more like 10) before we set off for our final destination.

Hopefully with an early night and some lighter moods we'll have a better day tomorrow.