Camping Municipal de Romains is pretty much full, which is good going for mid September. There is a reason for that: it is a decent (not brilliant) campsite, very well located next to a village full of restaurants and shops and in a part of France where the sun rarely stops shining.

Today the temperature has been about 22 degrees and with a clear blue sky. It is perfect from a weather perspective.

We have also been lucky with our pitch. Because we have a large motorhome they have given us a large pitch. It is near the toilet block so we have parked Basil’s imposing bulk across the front of the pitch, because experience tells us that Mabel will bark at anyone she doesn’t like the look of (mostly men) when they go to the toilets. So it’s best to arrange things so she can’t see anyone. The result is that the large pitch is like our own back garden and it is only about half the size of the garden we have at home!

The rhythm of our day has been dictated by various trips into the village of Mausannes-les-Alpilles. Firstly I went in fairly early to the Boulangerie, so we could have fresh French bread for breakfast and since it was our first day Sarah guiltily ate a Pain aux Raisins and I, not so guiltily, a croissant. Superb!

Typical house

After a morning of catching up on administration (yes things still need sorting out even when your a feckless retiree!), it was time for us to have a gentle stroll together in the village, with the dogs. We only went in separately yesterday so Sarah showed me the bits she had found and vice versa. We reviewed the prices in various restaurants and slightly adjusted yesterday’s judgement. We have found two restaurants and a pizzeria which just about creep into the reasonable price bracket, so I think we will eat out at least once.

The local cheese shop. It smells wonderful to walk past.

Much fun was also had peering into the numerous estate agents. If we sold up at home we might just afford a small three bed cottage. Most of the properties of any size are €1million euro plus. This is not a part of France in which to retire unless you have won the lottery.

Cottages in the village. Probably about €1.5 million for the one at the end of the alley!

I picked up a loaf of bread for lunch at a different baker and was even able to help with a bit of translation! There was an elderly English couple (even more elderly than us) doing the typical English thing of of making no attempt at the local language and just asking lots of questions about various sweet pastries. The shopkeeper’s English was excellent, but at one point she couldn’t think of the English word for “marrons”. She asked her colleagues and drew a blank. Smarty pants here was able to chirp up with “chestnuts”! My French is generally pretty lousy but I have a decent vocabulary, especially when it comes to food – my specialist subject!

Sarah and the dogs relaxing in the village square.

Lunch was one of my favourites in the world – French bread, paté and French cheese. Yum yum. No wine at lunch though, I’m getting soft in my old age. Sarah, of course had her normal lunch of rabbit food: carrot, lettuce, peppers, grass* and and some cottage cheese an insult to French cuisine if every I’ve seen one.

The Laverie (I think). Used to be the communal washing area for the village. Today, if you have a €1m house in the village, you probably have a washing machine.

After a relaxing afternoon I trotted yet again, into the village for another French stick and on my way back I nipped into what must be the best greengrocer’s I have ever seen. I’ve picked up some cheshnut mushrooms, some wild (not cultivated) chanterelles and a type of wild mushroom I’ve never seen nor eaten before. I’m hoping with this third one that the shop would not be selling it if it was poisonous. Tonight we are having mushroom risotto.

*Sarah did not really have grass with her lunch (well not today anyway!)