Since about half of France closes on September 15th, or thereabouts, we are now into the part of the trip where you go where there is an open campsite.

We are up at Avignon. We came here many years ago but I can remember precious little about that trip. It’s a dreadful place to visit because it naturally gives you the most terrible earworm, one of the main tourist attractions being, of course, le pont d’Avignon, which now looks like more of a demi-pont d’Avignon, reaching out into the river Rhône but not across it.

Actually it’s more like a fifth of a pont in that what remains is just 4 arches of the original 22. At this point the channel of the Rhône splits into two creating a large island in the middle of the river. Originally the bridge spanned from Avignon, across the island, and onto Villeneuve-les-Avignon on the opposite bank of the river, hence the 22 arches. The large white tower, about halfway up the picture, is where the original complete bridge terminated.

On the island, there used to be areas of entertainment and the revellers used to dance under one of the arches. The original lyrics of the irritating earworm were, “sous le pont d’Avignon…” – under the bridge at Avignon. The bridge apparently collapsed quite regularly when the Rhône flooded and became too expensive to maintain. Eventually, in the 17th century, they stopped trying to repair it and the song lyrics changed to “sur le pont d’Avignon …” – on the bridge at Avignon. The lyrics would have been every bit as irritating either way.

The other attraction in Avignon, being the cité des Papes, is the pope’s palace. What’s with the pope not being in Rome, then? Well, there was apparently a conflict between the papacy and the French crown leading to the pope residing in Avignon between 1309 and 1376. Bloody religion, eh? In the picture above, the ostentatious gold-coloured statue tops the pope’s palace.

Looking north from the elevated papal palace, the landscape is dominated by the mighty Mont Ventoux, frequented regularly by the Tour de France and tagged, “the beast of Provence”. It’s a surreal landscape, the summit being bare limestone appearing like snow. The mountain used to be forested but it was systematically felled for shipbuilding from the 12th century onwards. Losing the trees led to wind erosion – the wind here exceeds 90km/h for 240 days a year. Hence the now bare limestone rock. Well done again Homo sapiens.

I’ve been completely out-barbecued, too. In the same way that Mont Ventoux dominates the surrounding landscape, a barbecue has turned up that dominates the surrounding campsite pitches. Two Swiss motor homes in convoy arrived and, from one of the garages, rather like a magician producing a rabbit from a top hat, this gas barbecue complete with wheeled trolley was produced. It wasn’t even broken down, it was complete – ready assembled. Not only that but it came complete with it’s own, dedicated 10kg Gaslight cylinder. Did it connect to the external gas point on the motor home? Oh no, let’s carry an extra 10kg gas cylinder for it. Jeez! Our own little 30cm Cadac (which I would recommend) even has to be broken down to fit into Frodo’s cupboards.

How the other half lives.

We’ve moved on from Loupin but only a relatively short distance, about 40kms further east along the Mediterranean coast to Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone. [I’m curious about the grave accent here on “les”.] We’re in a couple of days of unsettled weather pattern which we’re trying to ride out as best we can.

This place is in some salt lagoons that the Canal du Rhône à Sète cuts through. This canal joins the Canal du Midi at the Étang de Thau. A canal cutting through lakes sounds a little odd but I think the reasoning is that the shallow lakes need a deeper navigation channel cutting through them.  A couple of pictures should give the idea. We went out for a windy bike ride to have a gander. On the left of this shot is the canal itself with a lagoon on the right.

Just behind that picture we found the Passerelle du Pilou which is an opening swing bridge to allow the passage of boats. What I found fascinating about this is that the swinging part of the bridge is driven by two outboard motors, one pushing the bridge open and the other, in the opposite direction, to close it. It looks like an ingeniously cheap solution to a power source for a bridge..

The other “attraction” was that this place runs a commercial aire de camping car which Francine found had good reviews, so we thought we’d adopt the camping car approach and give it a go. It’s another automated system offering credit card entry to a what is a tarmac car park but with water and electricity connections on each space, of which there are 44. Reviews say it is favoured by larger units because of its manoeuvrability. We arrived and the access worked a treat, with instructions in multiple languages. A code is issued to open the gate again pour sortir We parked modestly-sized Frodo, hooked up to the electric borne, which Francine declared to be working, got the chairs out and settled on our rented piece of tarmac for a traditional installation beer.

Now, on the plus side these places are open all year and your 3.5t camping car ain’t gonna get stuck in mud, which we had witnessed happening remarkably easily last September after rain at Villemarin not so far away.  It’s also close to the autoroute for passing travellers. Sometimes, there may not be a campsite around, either. (Most of those here now seem to be closed.) However, we’d just been paying €17 a night at Loupian on a bona fide campsite with trees and sanitaires, but which will close at the end of the month, and this car park costs €20 a night, which seems pretty steep. Still, it’s popular so they must be doing something right. Ya pays ya money and takes ya choice, I suppose.

A Spanish rental van had turned up close by and, after a little while, seemed to be having trouble with the electric hook-up. There was much Spanish peering at plugs and sockets, accompanied by discussion. Eventually, they seemed to give up – everything got packed away and said Spanish rental van drove off and exited. Meanwhile other vans had been turning up around us.

Shortly after returning from our windy bike ride Francine announced that our electricity had gone off. I looked at the borne. all four previously green lights (there were four connections in each borne) were now extinguished. I wandered to the neighbouring borne; same story. At the opposite end of the car park a group of French campers were in animated conversation. I joined them. The electricity supply for the entire aire had gone phut! It wasn’t an individual circuit breaker problem. The French told me that they had called someone, who was on the way.

A Swedish van now parked where the Spanish van had been. He needed power for some breathing apparatus overnight for his wife. I assured him that the problem was in hand. How’s that for confidence?

Mr Fixit duly appeared and studied the main site circuit breaker box. He spotted the fact that I keep my excess cable coiled on a drum. It’s true that this is said not to be the best idea but that’s ‘cos too much current flowing around a coil can cause overheating. What it doesn’t do is cause you to draw still more current, unless things melt and you short-circuit. Even then, you’d think it would pop your individual circuit breaker. I’ve been doing this for 35+ years and it hasn’t yet caused a problem. Nonetheless, my less-than-helpful French neighbour tried to unravel the drum, the wrong way, and tangled it up  Thanks a bunch!  The problem persisted.

I directed the assembled French multitude to the borne vacated by the now absent Señor Spaniard. Aha! The offending former connection had been found. I’ve no idea what had been done but one socket appeared a bit mangled. If it’s good enough to save Apollo 13 it’s good enough for a French aire de camping car – duct tape was produced and the offending socket taped up to avoid further use. Normal service was resumed. Phew!

There are Flamingos on the nearest lagoon but I had not had my camera on our bike ride. For some light relief after the electrical excitement, Francine and I wandered down on foot, this time with camera, to watch them. They are quite close in to the shore and offered a decent opportunity, once one of their number decided actually to do something instead of just standing there.

If you are a retired wrinkly looking to enjoy France, there are two months that are head and shoulders above all the others if you are to avoid screaming hoards of Satan’s Little Disciples accompanied by “modern” parents who have lost all sense of parenting skills. [Yes, we used to have them.] June is ultimately the best, especially for a nature lover who wants to see late spring in all its potential glory with as much wildlife interest as possible. Next best is September, when most of the rugrats are locked up back in school, buggered concrete an’ all. The trouble is that nature is thinking of shutting down in September so it doesn’t quite match June.

September is also the month of Francine’s birth so, favouring visiting France in September, her birthday is more often than not celebrated in France. This year is particularly special because Francine has a significant birthday, though a gentleman really shouldn’t disclose a number. We are both fond of the French plateau de fruits de mer feasts which, being nigh on impossible to get back at home, seem particularly special. In a nutshell, that’s largely why we are here now.

The Bassin de Thau is oyster country, above all else, but it does do mussels as well. Mèze is a great little place to find a celebratory seafood feast. We’d cycled down the few kilometres from our campsite at Loupian to Mèze to study the menus at the various harbour restaurants and found one in particular offering a selection of plateaux. I booked a table, just to be safe.

So here we are. Instead of one of their set selections – Francine isn’t fond of bulots [whelks] and I could care less about raw moules [mussles], though we both love them cooked – we decided to pick a coquillages selection ourselves. We opted for a dozen large oysters, a dozen palourdes [clams], half a dozen crevettes [prawns] and a torteau [crab] as a centre piece. For anyone who likes playing with their food, this has to be the way to go. As a final mark of perfection, the restaurant had a bottle of viognier from the local Beauvignac cave, which has to be our favourite white wine, to wash it down.

We munched our way through that whilst looking at this. What could be more idyllic? Why on earth did I not emigrate when I had the chance to do so? That way lies insanity.

We’re installed at Loupian on its camping municipal. There is also an aire de Camping Car in Loupian, which I believe is one of the Camping Car Park chain. Having tried one out on our way south and found it decent, we had a brief debate with ourselves over where to stay in Loupian but it was only a very brief debate.

The aire de Camping Car has some 44 spaces and it was well subscribed. The vans are more or less on top of each other. This would cost you a tad over €13 a night but BBQs are not permitted. There is wi-fi, though.

The camping municipal, on the other hand has what is, in France, the pretty standard 100m² pitches, which literally do tend to be a 10m x 10m square with room to BBQ and stick up a washing line. If you are in possession of one of the “Dutch always want a deal” ACSI cards, the municipal costs you €17 a night plus taxe de séjour (60¢ each or so). Personally, I don’t see much debate.

As far as I know, the French for both camper van and motor home, if you draw a distinction, is camping car. I don’t believe the French language does draw a distinction. [One of our friends once described French as “an impoverished language”.] The “car” part has nothing, of course, to do with the English “car; camping car literally means camping bus.

For some reason, the Loupian campsite has attracted several examples of camping car that take the term literally by being about the size of a single-decker bus. This one is a Dethleffs monstrosity of 8.61m [I looked it up] and was towing a trailer with what appears to be a euro equivalent of a Mini Moke loaded on it. Squeezing that lot onto a 10m x 10m square must’ve been quite a challenge. Just driving a train length of 13.5m or so around the campsite would be challenge enough. Some of the camping car parks don’t permit trailers so sometimes options get limited.

This leviathan must be 9m if it’s an inch. When we arrived it was in the road outside the campsite with hazard flashers going, we heard because of a flat battery. Campsite Man joked that it might be very expensive [it most certainly would be] but they should’ve forked out extra for a battery. I’m not sure how but it was encouraged back into life and drove into the campsite. Whilst I think its an embarrassing disgrace, I must say I was impressed that the owner managed to get it into this pitch apparently unscathed. There must be about half a metre to spare at either end and you have to make an S-turn past trees and a building to get in. Bravo.

Side thrusters for camping cars? Now there’s an idea.

It would be all too easy to stay at the Fanjeaux campsite; the pitches are huge (200-300m²) with a low occupancy in September, and the others that are here are mostly personal friends. We know, we’ve done it before. We’d already stayed a bit longer than originally intended but the weather forecast in the surrounding areas may have had a say in that. However, we’ve paid up and finally we’re off after six nights.

The morning dawned looking a bit grim with dark grey surrounding us. We needed to head for the Carrefour at Bram on our way out to stock up with food and, being a Sunday, it closes at midday. Nadine wanted us to stay for a coffee on our way out and we were happy to oblige. She said they’d let us stay at their farm, even out of season, perhaps on the way to and/or from Spain in winter. It was a gracious offer but we’ve already booked the ferry to and from Santander. Maybe next year? I have a feeling that driving through France would be more enjoyable than the 36hrs crossing, over two nights, from Portsmouth to Santander. We’d just have to be cautious about the bloody post-Brexshit 90 days in 180 rule. We’ll see.

As we were breaking camp, I spotted an interesting little, and I do mean little, new friend on one of our roof vent screens, frantically trying to get out. It looked interesting because I could see, small thought it was, that it had patterned wings. It was very active, scurrying about, so I couldn’t focus stack it. It was holding its wings out to the side but up at about a 30° angle, so depth of field was a bitch with my little macro lens. In our haste to get up to Nadine for coffee, still leaving time for the supermarket, this is about all I could manage. Meet Macrocera phalarata, apparently a “predatory Fungus Gnat”.

OK, I had to look that up ‘cos “predatory” and “fungus” seemed contradictory. It seems that it’s the larvae that are predatory, rather than the adults, which presumably are where the fungus comes in. Live and learn.

We did our shopping and, with a strong wind blowing straight on Frodo’s nose in our planned direction of east, towards Mèze, we chose to avoid the autoroute and take the side roads. It was only about a 2-hour journey even at pedestrian speeds, relatively speaking, and would be more interesting.

We never really left the murk and arrived at Loupian, where there is a camping municipal that we quite like. We found a free parking area that was handy to have lunch and kill time until 14:00 when the accueil [reception] would reopen. We could see the campsite from our parking area and three camper vans were waiting in line to register. It’s very strange that, though the books say “closed between 12:00 and 14:00”, that’s exactly when most people turn up.

We waited for the queue to disperse, then drove down to register ourselves.

My AdBlue investigations continue and, as they say in all the best Spoonerisms, the thot plickens.

After Francine thought she saw AdBlue from a pump in a Leclerc service station at 69¢ per litre, I thought I’d look in the supermarkets’ motoring sections for flagons of AdBlue, thinking I might take some home with me. I found some on the shelves of the Carrefour in Bram, close to Fanjeaux. The trouble was, it was €20 for 10 litres, about the same price as flagons back at home. I began to doubt the price at the Leclerc filling station; maybe a “1.” had dropped of before the “69” or we’d just misread it?

Today we unpitched Frodo and drove down avec les bicyclettes to Mirepoix to investigate a piste cyclables. The piste cyclables was certainly flat but was monotonous – dead straight, gravelly and with not much to look at but the trees beside the track; similar to Bassin d’Arcachon. There was a brisk headwind outbound which made it feel like riding uphill. What wimps!

Back in Mirepoix, Frodo was parked near a Total Energies fuel station and, lo, an AdBlue pump. Well, red rag to a bull, I had to go and investigate. Sure enough, the advertised price was €0.699 per litre. Clearly the Leclerc sign had not been misread, was not an aberration and no “1.” had been dropped.

Having emptied my 10ltr flagon into Frodo’s AdBlue tank (capacity 20ltr) I had no idea how much space remained but I wanted to get some for the education. I’d also still got my 10ltr flagon which I thought I might refill at this irresistible price. We found somewhere to turn around and headed for the station forecourt.

As one might expect, the pump was similar to a regular fuel pump – stick in a credit card, decrochet le nozzle – le nozzle was clearly narrower than a fuel nozzle – and start filling.

Or not. Le nozzle trigger kept cutting off. I knew the tank wasn’t full so that wasn’t the problem. I leant on le nozzle against the tank spout with some force, thinking that there might be some plunger device detecting insertion into the spout. Being a little more judicious with my trigger finger I eventually manged to get something of a flow going. Francine called out delivery progress (my back was to the pump and very preoccupied) as I began developing a blister on my nozzle hand from the pressure. Youch! This ain’t easy. I felt like I must be missing something.

Eventually I’d managed to push a little over 8ltr of AdBlue into Frodo. I moved to the flagon. Nothing, nada, nichts, rien. After a miniscule dribble the AdBlue nozzle steadfastly cut off, no matter what I did. Ya can’t press against a plastic flagon with such force. I surrendered but at least Frodo now had a full AdBlue tank, good for another 5400kms before the bleating started again. I had narrowly avoided a blister.

A little reading suggests that there may be a magnetic device on AdBlue nozzles which needs to marry up with a magnet in the neck of the vehicle’s AdBlue filler tank. Being right beside the diesel tank filler, this is apparently to stop les idiots stuffing AdBlue into their diesel.

It also stops people buying reasonably priced AdBlue from a pump and refilling their expensively priced single-use plastic flagons.

It can’t be that difficult to use. I still feel I’m missing a trick. I’ve got another 5400kms to find out.

Whereas the French language, with Velo Tout Terrain, has a much more appropriate phrase for Mountain Bike, it simply doesn’t get it with moths, or “mirths”, as inspector Jacques Clousteau would have it. There are many day flying moths so papillon de nuit seems most inappropriate.

I have long found the sanitary blocks on French campsites a good source of insect material, particularly moths – the lights attract them and most of these probably really are papillons de nuit. So far I have managed to escape arrest for hanging around the toilets toting a camera armed with a 300mm lens, though I have received some quizzical looks.

At Fanjeaux, I’ve had quite a haul of customers in and around les sanitaires. Since I don’t have a field guide for moths of the area (and I’m rubbish at moth identification even with one), I’m not certain what most of these are so take names with a large pinch of salt. I pass some through an app, Obsidentify, which is very decent chez nous  but it really doesn’t stretch to French species, unless they happen to also exist in the UK.

One of the more frequent visitors, however, I do know – or at least, I think I do. This is a huge moth about the size and shape of a Vulcan bomber. I believe this is a French Red Underwing (Catocala elocata). There is a (regular) Red Underwing (Catocala nupta)  which is very similar, though. The first image might leave one bemused but the second, against a window and with its wings slightly spread, gives the game away.

Then we have a little delight which has apparently turned up in the UK as a rare migrant, originally in Lydd, hence it’s English common name of Lydd Beauty (Peribatodes ilicaria). This is the same naming convention as used for a butterfly we call the Camberwell Beauty (Nymphaplis antiopa).

This next one is not new to me and certainly does occur in the UK; it’s the Common Carpet (Epirrhoe alternata).

Lightening things up from the large amounts of dark grey is what I believe is the Small Dusty Wave (Idaea seriata).

Back to the delta wing formation, I found a couple more which I think are the Straw Belle (Aspitates gilvaria) on the left, which occurs at home, and one with apparently no common name, Perigune narbonea, on the right, which does not occur at home.

Posing particularly badly is what I believe is one of the curiously named Armyworm Moth (Mythimna unipuncta), due to the invasive nature of their larval stage.

Finally, rounding things off is one character that I have absolutely no clue about, so I’ll have to try to investigate once back at home.

At least I still haven’t been arrested.

Somewhat inevitably, with the weather threatening to collapse for a while and being in the area, we have ended up back at our old haunt of Fanjeaux. It would be rude, after all, for us to be in striking distance and not to call in to say hello to Luc and Nadine, et al.

We got here from Marciac after a few trials and tribulations deciding to go on a cross-country route rather than sticking to the faster autoroutes. The satnav’s route was thrown a curve ball when the town market barred the road that the satnav wanted to take. So, we ended up following her diversion and ended up in the confusion called Toulouse, which we’d been wanting to avoid.

All was not over, though. Having got to the Toulouse rocade [bypass], Sally Satnav studiously avoided dumping us on the A61 out of Toulouse. Curious. A look at options showed us avoiding single use toll roads. We had had a glitch approaching Amboise and wondered if that was a software update and thought it may have reset an option or two? We’ll never know. We reset the option, found our way to the A61 and arrived.

Hawk-eyes Francine spotted that Frodo had attracted a visitor, and a very curious looking visitor at that. This was a job for my macro lens, being a little less than a centimetre long. Fortunately it remained stationary for me while I set my camera options. This glorious little delight, hitherto completely unknown to me, is a so-called Buffalo Treehopper (Stictocephala bisonia). This is an in-camera focus-stacked image. The “cephala” part of the genus means head but I’m not sure about the “Sticto” bit. There is a fearsome looking thorn on the end of what would seem to be part of the thorax, the abdomen being beneath it behind the wings. However the name is derived, it’s absolutely gorgeous and I’ve never seen the like before.

Moving away from Frodo and into the sanitaire or, at least, the washing up area of the sanitaire, we found a curious little delight. This was even smaller than our buffalo friend, being no more than 5mm across. Once again this is an in-camera focus-stacked image of 15 slices, hand held but with the aid of a monopod. The detail revealed is beautiful. I did try flash at first but the bright light on the white tiles obscured the finer detail and especially the delicate white spots which give it it’s name: Clogmia albipunctata.. I’m going to stick to the scientific binomial because the common English name of Drain Fly really doesn’t do it justice, though it is apparently technically accurate. It’s actually a kind of midge and another new one to me. I love this little creature to bits.

Our June trip to France had begun with ideas of touring the west coast. The weather, however, had other ideas and forecasts of storms rather put us off that idea. Looking for an escape route we considered visiting Marciac but the forecast there threatened grêle [hail] and we’ve seen what a mess that can make of a caravan and, therefore, presumably a motor van. So, we gave that a miss, too.

Here we were actually on the west coast and looking for a way to escape the madness of Bordeaux roads during the Rugby world cup. South from the Bassin d’Arcachon should do the trick, towards Marciac. Let’s give it another go.

Marciac is well known for a jazz festival, I think in August. I like a spot of jazz but I don’t think I’d cope well with the mass of humanity associated with it. Now, though, things should be quieter. We drove down with our replenished AdBlue tank and started deciding where to stay.

Frodo was very nearly brave again. There is an aire de camping car literally just on the outskirts of Marciac town centre. It’s a free one so we plugged the coordinates in to the satnav and found it. It’s a tarmac car park, though admittedly a tarmac car park with electric hook-up points and a Flot Bleu point to buy tokens with which to kick them into life. We arrived early in the afternoon. There seemed to be a motor home being used permanently and, nearby, an apparently abandoned car carefully spreading itself over two spaces. At that point we looked like the only tourer. This did not fill us with confidence. Besides, whilst I could stroll into town from here was I really going to want to cook my dinner and eat it in a car park?

No. For the sake of €19 we could park in the nearby bona fide campsite on grass, albeit covered in autumnal fallen leaves, get out our table, chairs and BBQ (this is not permitted in some aires) and cook and eat in much more pleasant surroundings. Such stopping points serve a purpose but I remain a little bemused about folks spending £70K on a motorhome, only to scrimp on where to park it.

The following morning when we actually went back to see the town there were three touring units in the aire making it look a lot less seedy. One unit had its table and chairs on the tarmac outside the van but I can’t say that that looked any more appealing. We used the aire to park and go and see the town centre and exchanged a greeting. For the most part the motor vanners appear to be a friendly bunch, often waving at each other as they pass on the road. It reminded me of the old days of VW Beetle divers giving each other a “V” salute as they passed.

Marciac is a bit like Mirepoix in that it has a central main square surrounded by ancient arched cloisters on four sides. You can’t move far without seeing some reference to the renowned jazz festival. Having wandered around the square we sat in the local gossip shop for a coffee.

We’ve seen Marciac, albeit without the jazz.

Our last two tow cars for my beloved Guillaumes have been diesels. They have dragged our Guilaumes around France for 16 years or so. However, even our most recent, which we’ve had since 2016, predates a modern diesel development. Somebody once asked if I’d been using “AdBlue” and I looked at them blankly. “Add what”?” I had no idea what they were talking about but began worrying that I was missing something.

I wasn’t missing anything; neither of our diesels had anything to do with any add anything.

Enter Frodo.

Frodo is a modern diesel and comes complete with not only a diesel tank but also an AdBlue tank. When we collected him we were told that we’d get a warning message that the AdBlue was running low and that we should refill it. Right. Alarmingly, we were also told that, if we didn’t refill it soon enough, the engine simply wouldn’t start and we’d be stranded. Great! “How far will we go before it needs refilling?”, I asked. Much scratching of heads. “It depends on your right foot”. Wonderful!

As a complete novice to this modern bollocks and being fearful of being stranded somewhere with an engine that refused to start, one of the first things I did was go onto a well known sales site beginning with A, ending in N and featuring a Z, to order some AdBlue. Frodo’s onboard AdBlue tank is 20ltr so I bought 2x10ltr containers. I stashed one in Frodo’s lockers so it’d be there when I needed it, whenever that might be.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that AdBlue isn’t even blue, it’s a completely colourless liquid. What is it? I discovered that it’s a 32.5% urea solution in demineralized water, effectively sanitized urine. It has nothing to do with the engine but gets sprayed into the exhaust gases downstream of the engine supposedly cleaning the emissions, making them more green. Piss into your exhaust and clean it up. Why then, for Pete’s sake, is it not called AdGreen? Why AdBlue? What’s blue about it? Nothing.

Some way through our current trip through France, Frodo had completed about 5400kms when up on the dashboard flashed a helpful message, “AdBlue running low, fill up within 2400kms”.

I dived onto the InterWeb. Apparently, 2400kms is the standard warning distance for AdBlue depletion. Weird distance? Well, maybe not, it’s equivalent to 1500mls. AdBlue, though, is German. Go figure.

So, we’ve done 5400kms and could do another 2400kms before being stranded. That means we’re using 20ltr of AdBlue in 7800kms – 4875mls. Say 5000mls for ease, though you’d be stranded by then. So, regardless of the cost of my diesel, I’m adding 20ltr of AdBlue to the running costs. On good ol’ A-z-n 20ltr of AdBlue is £35.

At our next stop I bit the bullet, opened the 10ltr AdBlue container and managed to decant it into the tank. The flagon came with a handy-dandy spout but it took a lot of holding and juggling to get the air to escape and the AdBlue to flow in. It had the desired effect and stopped my dashboard warning bleat.

Enter Rip-Off Britain.

Moving on from Arès to Marciac (famed for a jazz festival), we called in to a very modern Leclerc supermarket and stopped at its fuel station to top up. Some of the pumps also dispensed AdBlue. Very few stations do, at least for cars; many do for HGVs but the nozzle isn’t compatible with cars. Brilliant! The AdBlue was 69¢ a litre.

So, 10 litres of AdBlue in France, €6.90 (roughly £6). 10 litres of AdBlue in Rip-Off Britain, £17.50 – more or less three times the price.

Why is this? It’s pissin’ awful.