Weymouth

We were awake at 6.30 due to the lack of walls, and general campsite noise, but the alarm didn't go off until 7am. We got up, and Christian put together his diving kit. We could see now that there was a lagoon downhill from the campsite, then a hill, then the open sea. We wandered to the amenities block, and I went to investigate breakfast. Not a soul in either the pub or reception. So we decided to head into Portland and have breakfast at the Aqua Hotel.

It was a quick drive, east to Wyke Regis, and then across the causeway to the Isle of Portland. The causeway is flanked the whole way by Chesil Beach, looming on the right. We arrived not long after 8. There were no obviously diver-looking people there (though the only person we'd met and could recognise was Libby). Christian went outside to sort parking out, and I ordered breakfast and sat down. Two other people in the cafe were talking about a dive, and I thought I heard one of them say Christian's name. Christian came back, and based on what I heard, went up to speak to them. They were indeed from High Wycombe - Paul and his daughter Fiona. Breakfast arrived, and we ate. Christian updated his dive log.

Libby and Nick and Kiran arrived, and everyone kitted up for a 9.45 ropes off. There was nothing for half an hour, and then Libby rang. Apparently the tractor that launches the RHIB had broken down. So Louise and Niamh arrived at the dock 45 mins late. Everyone loaded their gear, and Louise gave everyone a briefing on the dive, and on how to ride the RHIB. They eventually threw the ropes off an hour late, and headed out for adventure.

I, on the other hand, set off walking. I'd decided that I would walk to Weymouth in one direction and get the bus back in the other. So I headed back across the causeway. The bay was full of sailing boats and small craft, and looked lovely. But Chesil Beach was taunting me with interestingness. I wasn't sure if you were supposed to just run up it, but I could see people up there in the distance. So I found a spot where I could get over the grass easily, and trudged my way up the clinky stones (shale, according to the signs). As expected, it was difficult to walk in, but I got to the top, and looked over into the beach below. There was no one there apart from fishermen. I took some photos (including a panorama), and walked down the other side. The further I went, the further I wanted to go. It was a very steep drop down to the waves, and I stopped just before I got wet feet. The waves were small, and mostly slapping down a couple of feet, making a hissing sound as the water drained through the stones. I couldn't face walking along the beach for any length of time, so I went back over the top and back on to the path.

It didn't take long to walk the rest of the causeway, and I started to climb the hill on the other side, expecting Weymouth town centre to be quite nearby. Except it wasn't. There was an awful lot of Wyke Regis. And then the road turned right, and just kept going. Eventually, I got to Weymouth, which was a total distance of 8 km, and stopped at Asda to try and buy a beach towel. I failed - getting some face washers - and had some cheap fish and chips for lunch instead. I continued on into the centre of Weymouth, finding all the shopping streets, and then the nasty high street ones, and managed to buy a case for my phone for £17. Win.

I then followed signs for the beach, and found a beachy paradise, where the first thing I saw was the Punch and Judy show. I sat down on the sand, corresponded with Christian via text, as he'd finished the first dive, and just watched the world go back for a while. It was warm, and I wished I was wearing fewer clothes, and had a towel to stretch out on. I got up to move at about 4pm, and had a wander up to the old harbour, which linked up with the way I'd gone into the city. Back to the beach, I caught a number 1 bus back to Portland. The journey seemed to go embarrassingly quickly considering how long the walk had been.

Back at the Aqua, I waited only a short time, watching the chav kiddies make fools of themselves, and some idiot in a mastless yacht go round and round the harbour before mooring on someone else's mooring. The divers came back around 5pm, packed up, and we went back to the campsite. We only had an hour to kill before going back into Weymouth for dinner with the group, and so Christian put info in his dive log from the day, I sat in the sun and had a very welcome shower. The dirty boy did not.

We went to meet Louise somewhere in the campsite at 7pm, finally finding her, having pitched her tent right across the road from reception, in desperate need of a shower. She told us to go on ahead, and so with no clear idea of where we were going, we drove into Weymouth and parked near the old harbour.

As we were walking in the general direction of restaurants, we bumped into Niamh, Paul, and Fiona. We decided on a pub/restaurant nearby (can't remember its name - someone and someone), and went in. We found a table, and Nick arrived, Louise arrived, and Kiran arrived. Paul bought a round of drinks, and we drank. It transpired that the restaurant was booked out, so Niamh tried to ring around, but Louise won by booking Prezzo for 9.15. Then Niamh was at the bar at the time of Christian's round of drinks, and managed to get a spot in the restaurant we were in for 9pm. At the allotted time, we went upstairs.

I had a lobster bisque fish pie, which was tasty - Christian had lamb stew. Food and service were pretty good. After sorting out the bill, Christian and I took our leave to avoid parking fines, and drove back to the campsite. As it was 10.30, we got ready for bed, and crashed. It was much colder that night.

Hazlemere to East Fleet (Weymouth)

I caught the bus from Hazlemere (with the forgotten tent) to Wycombe bus station, and then the park and ride up Marlow Hill to Cressex (M40 junction), where I met Christian at 6.15 on his way home from work.

It was a relatively quick drive to Weymouth, and we stopped at one services, were unimpressed by the food, and so stopped at a second, which was little better. We eschewed the McDonald's queue and got toasties from Costa.

We arrived at the campsite at 9.15, got instructions, drove through the coded gate, and found our plot with some difficulty. The tent went up easily, the readybed went up easily, and we wandered down to the pub for a potential drink and activity planning. I realised at this point that we'd forgotten towels. Because reception was closed, I asked the man behind the bar about hiring towels, but the best he could do was offer some paper towels, or suggest I use my cardigan. Hmmm. There was no internet to do planning, and so we decided to call it a night. After our ablutions, we settled down for sleep. It was fairly windy and cool outside, but warm in the tent. It cooled down over the course of the night.

St Cirq to Hazlemere

Alarm before 7am. Ouch. We got up and packed up the last of our things, leaving Sandie's air mattress, foam mats, and pump (and sadly, our electric pump in the room with the sleeping baby), and filled up the car. My ears were thankfully unblocked. Hurrah!

We grabbed some coffee in our insulated mugs, some croissants, and said a last goodbye to Sandie and to Rachael (who was still trying to get John up). We programmed the satnav to take us to Calais via Brive, Rouen and Chartres, avoiding any unpleasantness in Rouen, and set off before 8 into the blinding sunshine. We stopped and I got out to take a few photos of the sunflowers, being asked by a passing local whether I was OK. I didn't think quickly enough, and answered stupidly in English.

At Brive, we stopped at a Carrefour to get fuel, and to stock up on supermarket items. We had to wait until the shop opened at 8.30. We bought confit, rilletes, saucisson, camembert, Rocamadour goat's cheese, wine, beer, and various other things, costing us €120. Oops. We bumped into Rachael and John there. We continued on, stopping again at a supermarket to find coffee, but failing. Christian got tired (he hadn't slept well), and we stopped at a basic roadside park for me to take over the driving. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, as I'd got used to being on the wrong side of the road generally. I had to take an exit after about 20 minutes, and then stayed on the new road for about an hour, which I somehow managed to clear of traffic. We stopped again at the same l'Arche we'd stopped at on the way down, and Christian grabbed an iced coffee, and a diet coke. I drove on for a while longer, then stopped for another comfort break, where Christian took over driving again. We saw Rachael and John here too.

It was now lunch time, and we stopped at the next foody services near Orleans and got pasta salads for lunch. Back on the road again, we left the A21 and took a minor road, sharing it with a lot of farm vehicles, towards Chartres. At Chartres we got fuel. On the way through Chartres I could see the enormous cathedral and wanted to go there. Next time. We kept going to Rouen (avoiding road works), and I fell asleep around then. I woke up and made myself more alert, as Christian said he might want me to drive again. We stopped for a McDonalds coffee soon after, which included a comedy drive-through shouted conversation in French over my head. There was another cathedral in Rouen that I wanted to see. By now, Christian was properly awake again, probably because he had someone to talk to again.

From there we mainly hugged the coast up to Calais. We got stuck in a big road works traffic jam, while Christian badly needed the toilet. We stopped at a roadside park, used the disgusting facilities, and got covered in bugs.

At Calais, having arrived at about 6pm, there were no ferries until the one we were booked on at 8pm, so we checked in, left the car in the appropriate lane, and went for a walk in search of food. We failed. So we set up the laptop to watch some Game of Thrones, using bluetooth for the sound on the car system. After needing to buy some internets to get through DRM, we got about half an episode watched. Our ferry pulled up, and vehicles started coming off. We switched off GoT, and got hit by a massive storm. Luckily, it had passed before we went to go on.

We parked the car on the ferry, and made a beeline for food. I had fish and chips, and Christian had chicken schnitzel and chips. They were OK. We explored the ship, which was old, tired, and broken compared to the Dunkerque ferry. We went outside briefly, but it was still a bit stormy, and very windy. We went back inside. At about this point, I realised that the whole ship was heeling to one side in an alarming way. You'd think they'd distribute the vehicles a bit more sensibly.

We found a spot with some comfyish lounges in the bow, and settled down for the rest of the journey. Christian got a coffee, and did some reading. I gazed out the window at the horizon. At Dover, we docked, got in the car, and drove off without incident. Christian drove (on the left) to the M25 services, got fuel, and I took over driving, though a little unsure that I was in the right mental state. The M25 had a lot of road works, and was quite stressful, so after a while I asked to swap again, as Christian was feeling OK. I took an exit, managed to miss a roundabout, felt very stupid, and stopped to hand back the wheel. Christian drove the rest of the way home, and thankfully wasn't annoyed at me. We got home to our lovely flat, with a lovely non-inflatable bed, at about 11.30.

Artisan markets, Padirac caves, and Rocamadour

We got up reasonably early, grabbed some breakfast, and set off to check out the artisan markets at Saint-Germain-du-Bel-Air with a view to getting gifts for people. We got there and parked, and walked around, but couldn't find any markets. Christian texted John, who replied to say that they were definitely on, because he was there. We finally found them, and discovered them to be slightly disappointing. Some of the stalls were the same as at Gourdon the day before, and there was one pottery stall, and nothing else of the kind we were looking for. Oh well. We got a sample of some foie gras, and some lovely pate.

From there we set off for Padirac caves (looking out for supermarkets to buy some ear drops to clear my still blocked right ear, but failing), arriving at about 12.30. We got in the queue (not too long) and progressed through the hot sun to the ticket office. We got our tickets for €9 something, and descended into the depths. After the second flight of steps, we took some photos back up the huge cave opening. We moved on, through increasingly cold and drippy walkways, taking a few photos, to the punt queue. We were lucky that they called for two as soon as we walked up, so got on a punt quickly. The punts were heavy and steel, and we got a seat to ourselves at the back. The guy operating the punt told Christian to watch the water with his camera.

We set off through the caves. I took a photo and the punt guy said 'pas le photo'. Damn. The cave walls were huge, and the ceiling was a *long* way up. The punt glided easily through the water, passing other punts, and the wall, without much clearance. Punt guy was very skilful. Sadly, he was speaking French, and while Christian could mostly follow what he was saying, I had no chance. He explained how limestone is formed.

We docked at the end of the boat trip, and a lady took over the tour. We walked up and down and around, looking at pools, stalactites, stalacmites, and all sorts of amazing formations. There were a few things I would dearly loved to have taken photos of, but she repeated that photos weren't allowed. It's quite a magical place, and I could see why divers want to submerge themselves in such interesting and beautiful puddles.

The walking part finished, and we were passed back to Mr Punt Man. We got back to the beginning with a minimum of fuss, and jumped out of the boats. On the way back to the stairs, we decided to buy a copy of the photo of us in the punt, taken by a professional on the way past. It's quite good. We went back up two lifts, and the top stairs, with the temperature increasing exponentially as we went, back into the bright sunshine.

It was 2.30 by now, and we were starving. We'd intended to buy a feast from a supermarket, but walked away from the completely touristy expensive restaurants, and found a nice, laid back bar/restaurant, with a lovely serving man. Christian ordered confit of duck, with smoked duck, salad, and chips. I ordered a salad with two kinds of smoked duck, and foie gras. Both meals were huge and extremely good, and not that expensive. We enjoyed them very much.

We headed off again, to Rocamadour. We parked near the chateau, and went into the battlements to look at the view. From there, we made our way down the fourteen stations of the cross (backwards), and I tested out my French. We got to the main square with the pilgrimage church of Notre Dame, but kept going past it as we were both craving ice cream. We found a nice cafe, and Christian had a peach melba, and I had pistacchio and white chocolate ice creams.

After that, we only had time to wander for a while, looking for presents for Sandie - settling on prunes in Armagnac - before we had to go back up. The town is quite touristy, but quaint at the same time. We went back up to look in the church (I had to cover my shoulders and shortsness), which again has beautiful windows, and then we headed off to get the funicular back up to the chateau. The drive back to St Cirq was uneventful, and we didn't get back until about 6.30.

We did what packing up we could, taking down the wind break. Christian packed the wine and dive gear. I got some more ear drops from Rachael, in an attempt to clear my right ear once and for all. It stayed blocked for ages afterwards, and I didn't have much hope for it working.

Our final dinner was lovely, with more prawns for starters, and tasty confit. Turns out that Sandie couldn't eat the prunes because she can't eat sugar (:-(), so she served them up to everyone, and kept the jar, vowing to make her own version for next year.

We said goodbye to everyone, and headed off to bed.

Gourdon, the river, and the big event

We had no desire to get up early after having been kept up all night, and so the idea of going early with Sandie to the Gourdon markets went out the window. Therefore, we got up about 10am, with the yahooers not far behind us, annoyingly.

We had breakfast, and drove into Gourdon, parking miles away, in a nice shady spot. Before we went, we set my SD card backing up to Christian's laptop, and said hello to a friendly grasshopper on the headlight. We wandered up to the markets, and saw all manner of tasty olives, foie gras, confit, saucisson, fruit, vegetables, quiches, vol-au-vents, paella, but didn't buy anything, as it would have been on the expensive side.

On the way back to the car, I wanted to call in to the chocolate shop, and we bought quiches for lunch, and some moussy desserts for afters. In order to stop the car's battery from flattening, we went back to the car to eat, and to stop the SD card back up. I could have sworn that someone in Sandie's car honked and waved at me, but it turns out it was someone else in a black Audi. Hmmm.

We went back up into Gourdon to explore, walking up to the top of the fortification to look at the view, and read about the history of the town. On the way back down, the large crowd of people had moved away from the church, and so we went in for a look. The church itself wasn't exceptional, but the windows were lovely - strangely, some of them looked decidedly art deco, but we couldn't find any information to suggest that they had been redone recently.

I spotted a sign to some gardens after that, and we went to investigate. They were cute cottage 'zig zag' gardens, with flowers, herbs, and vegetables. We'd seen a reasonable amount of the town, and so headed back to the house, only to discover that the rest of them still hadn't had lunch by 1pm. Christian remembered that he'd forgotten to buy batteries to replace the ones of Sandie's he'd used for his torch, and so we went in search of some in Le Vigan. Sadly, everything was closed for siesta, so we headed back. Luckily, John and Rachael were just going off to do a supermarket run, and so we asked them to buy batteries.

We pootled around for a while, then decided to head straight to the beach without waiting for anyone else. We got a spot in the sun, spread out the broken air bed, and went to get in the water. It was only then that we spotted Annalise and Lita further up. We went for a swim, and Christian went to investigate the cave that John had been in the day before. A bat flew out at him, which was moderately exciting.

I got cold, and my ear, which had been blocked already, felt pressurised and uncomfortable, and so I got out and tried to catch some sun. The sun was annoyingly reticent, despite me chasing it with my towel. After a while, despite my ear, I decided to go back in the water, because I was warm, and because I wanted to try some duck dives, which the others were practising. I can do them, but not very well, so need to practice. Christian said I needed to relax my breathing, and not to take a huge breath in before going under, and this helped. I also need to work on being able to swim 150m underwater, which I definitely can't do at the moment. This was our last chance to do dry caving, and it didn't happen. :-(

After Rachael gave me some of her alcohol/hydrogen peroxide ear drops to try and clear my ear, John and Rachael headed back, and we weren't far behind them. I had a shower and washed my filthy hair. The band had a bit of a rehearsal, and Liz handed me her clarinet. Looks like I was going to be involved. I tried a few numbers, firstly trying to play the melody with Chris, but gave up on that, as Liz herself did. It was just too difficult to transpose. So I attempted to put in some harmony with what Chris was doing. Even that was something of a challenge.

The guests began to arrive, and we all had some pink bubbly to get rid of the last of the wedding wine. The English and the French crowds didn't mix much, but everyone seemed to have a good time. It was nice to meet and speak to Harald - his crazy beagle (Hagar the Horrible) and Wolfie created reasonable mayhem, so both got tied up, to their chagrin. Dinner was lots of cold stuff, with tasty tarts, salad, cheese.

The band played a set, which was mostly fun, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly. I was sorry to not actually be able to play out properly, but it wasn't about me.

We asked Maurice about his 60D, and Christian had a go with some of its features. Maurice had a go with Christian's lens.

The band did another set without me, which I was glad about. It was fun to listen, and they had a couple of train wrecks (all good fun).

Christian and I decided to go to bed about 11, and in so doing, missed the fireworks display that John let off nearby. Some of the rocket sticks landed dangerously close to our tent. We certainly heard the noise and saw the flashes. Christian decided in the end to go out and watch them, but only caught the last couple.

This evening wound up much earlier than the night before.

Cave diving, swimming in the Dordogne river, and dress rehearsal for the main event

Sandie's air bed went down as well, but not nearly as much as ours had.

Chris, Liz, and Bethan arrived after having driven through the night.

Today, Christian was to have a short trial cave dive with John. Originally, we were going to leave early, but then we weren't, so we lugged a stack of stuff down from upstairs in the barn. And then we were suddenly leaving that minute.

We went via Harald's to drop off a spring from a dump valve that he'd asked John to replace, and then went on to Marcilhac-sur-Cele. John and Christian began to prepare, and Rachael and I walked into the village in the warm sunshine. We chatted about various things, including photography, the publishing industry, and diving. In the village, we looked at the huge, half ruined church, tried to understand an exhibition in French about pilgrimages, walked along the river to a mill and waterfall, and then bought some decadent pastries as post-diving treats.

We headed back to the river, and by this time John and Christian were in it, but had only just finished doing some drills, and were about to head into the cave. I watched them submerge. They were only down for about 20 minutes, and then emerged into the heat, packed up, and we left for St Cirq. It had been a good experience for Christian, though he was a bit discouraged by the drill coaching that John had given him.

While we were gone, Stumble and Lita (Annalise's mum) had arrived. We had lunch, and lots of people decided to go to the 'beach' (the Dordogne river) at Grolejac for a swim. Stumble came with Christian and me. The road to the river was bouncy and dusty. We found a spot on the fairly dirty bank, and bravely got in the cold water. Christian and I tried out our fins, and I tried out my mask and snorkel. They were fine, but I need to get used to breathing underwater again. The visibility was nonexistent John inflated his dinghy (with a diving cylinder), and Christian and I monkeyed around in it for a while, trying to propel ourselves around in it with nothing but kayak paddles. John did a bit of exploring in a cave directly opposite, but we didn't get a chance to do proper dry caving in a cave further up as we had to be back at the house for 6pm.

I ran for the shower, getting waylaid by Sandie asking me to shell some boiled eggs. John and Christian set up the PA system, and many Elliots arrived for a dinner for 22. It was set up under the marquee, and Sandie had asked us to mix up. We listened to her iPod mix, which included Gershwin and lots of jazz. I approve. Dinner was delicious, with prawns for starters, and cous cous, spicy smoked chicken, and tagine for main.

There was a giant storm in the distance (thankfully it stayed in the distance) that was producing some very dramatic lightning, and Christian snuck off to get some great long exposure photos of it. There were also some fireworks being let off nearby. Just before bed, I lay for a while, looking at the stars, and saw at least three of the shooting variety.

Christian and I headed for bed at about 11, but the party continued loudly until about 4pm. I slept fitfully, but poor Christian didn't sleep at all.

Shopping, and wine tasting in the Cahors valley

The air bed was flat when we woke up. Not fun.

Christian and I accompanied Sandie and Wolfgang to Gourdon to do some grocery shopping, leaving Rachael to investigate where the air escaped from the air bed. We parked on the 'ring road' in the shade, and went to Sandie's favourite bakery for bread. The quiches and pastries and sweet delights were gobsmackingly beautiful. Gourdon seems to be full of nice boutique-style shops. After a break at a cafe for a cafe/chocolat chaud/ice for Wolfie, we went to the Intermarche, and I just gawped at all the amazing food and wanted to eat it all. Sandie bought loads of it, and I learnt lots about French food. Of note were the strange small, dark prawnie things, the turkeys with their heads in the packaging, the amazing array of cheeses, and the many duck products.

Lizzie and two other of the Elliots arrived for lunch, and then they in their Jag, and we in John's van, headed off up to the Cahors valley in search of wine. We didn't know exactly where to go, and after some false turns, and trial and error, ended up tasting at Chateau les Ifs, Chateau Camp del Saltre, Chateau Laur, and Chateau de Chambert. We bought wine at all of them, which wasn't really the aim, but it was good, and mostly cheap, and we needed some. It was a very warm day, and lots of fun.

We got back to St Cirq around 6, I think, pumped up one of Sandie's air beds to replace ours, and had another lovely dinner, with wine.