The Swan Whisperer went for a run this morning, and then after breakfast just sat; I thought he was recovering before heading for a walk round Rouen, but he said he was waiting for me! Miscommunication rules!
Anyway, we thought we would drive down to Chamery via a village called Chigny-les-Roses, where we hoped to be able to empty the loo. We couldn't find the services, alas, but we did find a France Passion place, where I might suggest we spend the night on a future trip. It's all very well driving through Champagne, but I'd really like to get a chance to taste the eponymous wine, and this doesn't seem to happen!
However, we arrived in Chamery a few minutes later, and, for some extraordinary reason, it occurred to the Swan Whisperer that as well as putting €2 into the machine, he could press the button - and the services worked! We have only been going there for the past eight years...
Anyway, we then decided to go to Epernay, rather out of our way, but we decided we'd like to visit a museum about champagne. Unfortunately, when we got there, there was nowhere to park, so we had to come away. After which we rather thought "sod this for a game of soldiers!" and drove up here, to this goat farm near Cambrai. This is brilliant!
We went into the shop and bought some goat's cheese - I tell you, you haven't lived until you've tasted goats' cheese stuffed with chestnut puree, it's lush! The very friendly people told us where to park up, and then said we might want to go and watch the milking, which should happen about 6:00 pm (it was actually a little later).
It was more than just watching the milking; the goats have to be milked in shifts, and the farmer spent the first shift showing the children (there was a group of young families who had come to shop and stayed to watch) where the milk came from, and encouraging them to squirt their mothers with milk direct from the teat! And showing them how they put on the clusters and so on. Interestingly, goats are much cleaner than cows, so he can milk them in his everyday clothes and doesn't have to wear rubber aprons and boots, like you do with cows. He also didn't wash the udders, or disinfect the clusters between goats, although he pointed out that the milk went straight to the dairy from the goat without coming into the open air in the meantime, and the clusters are disinfected for at least an hour after the end of milking.
Once the first lot had finished and been released, he rather dismissed us, so we came back to the WoMo and have been there ever since. There are two camper-vans here as well as us, one Swiss and one German.
We had some of the goats' yoghurt with fruit for supper pudding, and it was delicious - I shall buy some more tomorrow before we head on!
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