Into the blue skies

 We continued in clear blue skies that this time didn’t fail and crossed the French growing fields. These are huge, fairly featureless but mean that there are interesting villages full of tractors and towed machinery, plus plenty of equipment suppliers and repairers. I often hesitated as we slowed to drive through or past one of these places but was encouraged to press on.

Out of the blue we passed through an anonymous town with an amazing river, full of swans. Here we had coffee, served from the Landy kitchen and admired the view.

We later picnicked on a track at the side of the road which, on closer examination, was the headland of a cropped field. They obviously have too much land, as in England the headlands are cultivated too (I think they are anyway).

Just as we set off again, we were attracted by a sign for Aspergers. This is almost French for asparagus, which is a good thing to eat and we turned off, following the signs through a farming hamlet, until we reached the grand entrance of the asparagus farm. Here a commanding notice informed us that we were 10 minutes too early for afternoon opening. Doubtful of early service we turned around and headed on another route, this time following signs for fraises, which is exactly French for strawberries. These proprietors were smarter than their savoury neighbours and were serving, as their sign showed, 24h/24 which is French for 24/7

 A lady of advanced years appeared to be waiting to serve us but I was slow, as I was looking up at the roof of this huge open shed. On one side of the ridge it was totally formed of self-supporting solar panels. It was amazing.

The elderly lady, wearing a money belt / bum bag spoke in easy French as I approached a machine full of strawberry punnets. “C'est compliqué”.

It was a vending machine with carousels where you pushed the necessary button to rotate one, until the desired sector was behind the door, inserted the necessary spondulix and then opened the door. 

I demonstrated, without noticing that I paid nearly €5 for 500g of fraises. (They were very good tasting). She was happy to follow but needed some help and then we said goodbye, a good deed done.

Keeping a close eye on the clear blue sky above and the lightning strikes to the south, which developed again that evening, we headed for a village called Montbard, which seems a long way south but isn’t at all.

There’s a great municipal campsite on the edge of the village which is dominated by a spur with a large tower and remains of a scientific garden, planted, I believe, in order to conduct experiments into the growing of various edibles.

One other attraction is that the campsite fee allows entry to the magnificent indoor swimming pool complex. The next day we lane-swam and conducted experiments into tumble turns.