Today is the Swan Whisperer's 68th birthday. I gave him a Bluetooth earpiece so he can listen to music or podcasts while he is washing up and so on, plus more comfortable to listen in bed. He had a nice shirt from the Daughter, which he promptly wore, and cards from my parents and sister, me, and the Daughter's family - Boy Two's very new signature rather dominating everybody else's!
It was bitterly cold but we had both pretty much slept the clock round, and didn't stir until past 08:30 (mind you, that's only 07:30, UK time). We were in no rush, though. The A16 was blocked - probably demonstrators, but it might have been an accident - but the Sat-nav cleverly knew that and took us across country as far as St-Omer before joining the motorway. We stopped for lunch in a service area not far from Rheims, and again after the gare du péage a few miles later to tell it to take us on non toll roads for the rest of the day. As we came off, we saw one of the gares du péage surrounded by demonstrators in yellow jackets and were very glad we were going another way. We did pass one more demo, but very quiet, just someone burning palettes on the central reservation. And at one stage there was a new road which the poor Sat-nav didn't know about, which gave it a conniption fit!
We drove on and arrived here, outside a sailing club at Ste-Marie-du-Lac-Nuisement just before dark. We closed up the habitation to keep in residual warmth and then went out for a brisk walk round the club to get the blood flowing and shake the kinks out of our legs, enjoying watching endless Vs of wild geese flying overhead, and then back to the van for a cup of tea and toasted hot cross bun (yes, I know, wrong festival, but I do love them). The SW, whose hearing is better than mine, says he can still hear the geese, but I can't.
It's supposed to snow later, but then the temperature will rise quite dramatically, so I hope we won't be quite so cold tomorrow, which is another "driving day"
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