In almost 25 years of caravanning, we have never travelled with a TV, even though Guillaume is fully equipped for TV, complete with built-in aerial. Perhaps this is because we haven’t often camped out of season, when the evenings are longer. The nearest we’ve come to weakening is to pack a few DVDs to amuse ourselves with some favourite movies. By stark contrast, the first piece of equipment normally unpacked and installed by the typical modern Dutchman travelling in France is his tripod-mounted satellite dish. We look for an appealing pitch that provides some midday shade and gets evening sun, preferably as far from other campers as possible; the Dutchman looks for a pitch with a satellite signal unobstructed by trees. Fair enough.
We do have entertainment here, though, and today we needed it. After yesterday afternoon’s most enjoyable sun, today the rain was back with us and back for the majority of the day. With our bird feeder hung about six feet away from Guillaume’s off-side window, we can sit in Guillaume’s lounge and watch in comfort. Because the window looks a bit like a TV screen, we’ve dubbed our entertainment channel “Bird TV”. (I was going to go for “Sky TV” but Francine suggested that handle had been taken. Well, it keeps us amused on a dreary day.)
A new programme has been being screened on Bird TV recently: the Woody Woodpecker show. It’s on almost as much as The Simpsons. We think there may be two pairs of Great Spotted Woodpeckers in our vicinity. We’ve certainly seen male and female birds but we also witnessed a spat between a male and a female, perhaps implying that those two were not a pair. [Ed: Oh, I don’t know, though. 😀 ]
Over on the other side (i.e. out of Guillaume’s near-side window), another new programme held our attention: Jay Walking – in this case walking all over our pitch-included picnic table. We don’t mind it trampling on the table because the temperature is such that we’re hardly likely to be sitting out there using the table ourselves, so a little Jay guano would be no problem.
Our whitebait lunch date at the Hare and Hounds in Sway had proved so popular that we decided to go for another lunch date. This time I had a hankering for one of the pub’s burgers, homemade supposedly from local sides of beef that they butcher themselves. It lived up to my expectations. Francine went for the whitebait again, though a smaller portion this time.
A brief afternoon respite from rain, complete with a bright spell, allowed us to get some air and avoid getting too stir crazy. It was brief, though. Another threatening black cloud was approaching and we repaired to Guillaume for shelter and the odd bottle of wine.
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