Striking used to be called an English disease. In fact, it is much more of a maladie francaise, certainly these days. If it isn’t farmers blocking streets and burning foreign lamb imports, French truckers blocking autoroutes or French air traffic…

Yes, despite towing a caravan, today we hit a ton – a ton on the barking mad Fahrenheit scale, anyway. We drove up from our over-priced but partly shaded campsite just above Limoges and checked into another supposedly partly shaded…

So, to the reason for our 2-night stay at an overpriced campsite just north of Limoges. Today we were setting off to visit La Tourbière des Dauges in search of dragonflies. I’d learned of its potential some years ago from…

[I know, posted out of sequence again.] The French have a lovely word for heatwave: canicule. It’s not just the Brits with an obsession about the weather, the French are banging on about a canicule now. Parts of France were…

After trying to see how well £3200-worth of camera gear would bounce when thrown at a tarmac road surface, I’ve been back out and about a couple of times looking for Odos again, now concentrating on my grip on the…

Why do we call June 21st Midsummer’s Night? Officially, June 21st is the start of summer, the first night of summer, not the middle of summer. Everything from March 21st to now has been spring. I know the sun is…

Spanish properties are frequently, maybe even usually, fitted with rejas over the windows. Rejas are a bit like decorative prison bars over windows but they are designed to keep low-life out rather than you in. The two readily accessible “ground…

I have always disliked neck straps on cameras. Modern neoprene straps are better but stuff swinging round my neck is essentially uncomfortable. i don ‘t even like a modest pair of binoculars doing pendulum impressions around my neck, never mind…

[Yes, I know, another one out of sequence.] Just after we left Spain on our previous visit, we had just had our misplaced shower screen refitted, complete with an extra component to make it actually line up with the shower…

It’s smack on 500mls/800kms to Jalón from Fanjeaux. About 480mls/770kms of that would be on autoroutes/autopistas so we reckoned it would be about an 8-hour drive. Francine set her alarm for 6:30 AM so we could be on the road…