Having determined to leave, the morning at Fanjeaux dawned blue. This, however, proved to be like a classic English false dawn in that it soon began to cloud over.

We’d been invited for a coffee at the owners’ farm house and we called in at 09:00 to bid them farewell. As we were leaving just before 10:00 the blue sky had all but disappeared. Not that I doubted it for one minute but we’d made the right decision.

We had decided to head for the Mèze area. It’s one of our favourites. In truth, it’s where I want to live. Mèze is a pleasant town with a delightful harbour surrounded by decent seafood restaurants featuring, of course, wonderful oysters from the Basin de Thau, on which it nestles.

The most convenient campsite for this area, for those with bicycles, anyway, is the camping municipal at Loupian. Being a municipal it is, of course, not flash but that suits us. We’ve stayed there several times.

After our earlier visits, the Loupian campsite became an ACSI site. ACSI is a Dutch camping organization and is, in my book, little short of the mark of the Devil. ACSI offers a fixed price “deal” for two with electricity. It acts as a magnet for the deal-seeking Dutch, taking custom away from independent sites and concentrating custom on the ACSI sites. So, Loupian is now much busier than it ever used to be.

Enter 2024: with the weather over most of France being as bad as it was in the UK, Provence and the Mediterranean coast have reportedly been inundated by campers that might otherwise be enjoying other parts of France. We’ve seen posts saying, “Provence is full”.

We arrived at Loupian at about 11:30 – the accueil closes between 12:00 and 14:00. Provence wasn’t all that was full, Loupian was also full. Honestly, with the weather and the swarming Dutch, I had feared as much. This is only the 2nd time we’ve seen a full campsite in the 40+ years that we’ve been camping in France. The last time was over 30 years ago during the main holiday season and on that occasion, since there wasn’t a nearby alternative, the owner allowed us to stay on the hardstanding outside the gates and use the facilities.

Bother! On to plan B.

There was a desperation plan C which was a CCP (like an Aire de Camping Car) nearby but a few years ago we had discovered Camping Villemarin, an aire naturelle, about half way between Mèze and Marseillan, 5kms to either. We headed for that with all our fingers crossed.

It’s only a spit and we arrived before midday so wouldn’t disturb lunch. I asked if there was a pitch, and the owner asked for how many nights. I tried four. He consulted his manual booking system. Thumbs up – excellent! We were shown to the same pitch we’d had last year and were very happy. We settled down to lunch.

Clearly trying to find another pitch in the sunny bits of the south of France given this year’s situation was going to prove difficult. We began to wonder how long we might be able to stay. I went and asked. Our pitch didn’t seem to be booked for a good while so we could essentially stay as long as we wanted. We’re here until June 30th. Brilliant! Of course, we may have to have a couple of plateaux de fruits de mer while we’re here. Well, rude not to, really.

We were enjoying a sunny afternoon, nicely relaxed since we had a home until we had to head north, when I spotted an odd “discolouration” on Frodo. Upon closer inspection, the discolouration proved to be a little clutch of shieldbug nymphs still around their egg cases. Given being inundated by Brown Marmorated Shieldbugs here last year, I performed a quick internet search and, sure enough, these were 1st instars of the same beast. We’d imported several, inside Frodo, back to the UK and now Frodo had given birth to the next generation. Quite why the female had chosen to oviposit on Frodo, with no ready food supply for her offspring, I know not. These little guys are hardly 2mm across. The egg cases look interesting, too, with a sort of black butterfly design on them.

I saw that three at least, of the diminutive siblings, had broken away from the cluster and gone walkabouts, perhaps in search of a non-existent food source. There are apparently about 100 food plants but a Ford transit based motor home isn’t one of ‘em. I may have to try relocating the little darlings to try to give them a fighting chance.

So, the net result of this is that we’ve figured out one of the main breaches in biosecurity. The Brown Marmorated Shieldbug was apparently first reported in England in 2021. Given our experiences of ferrying them to England from southern France in 2023, I would not be surprised to learn that it was motor homes and caravans returning from the continent that were responsible.

We’ve done our usual thing and stayed a little too long at Fanjeaux.

The 2024 late spring/early summer weather continues to be unsettled in France, including southern France, and we have been treated to a series of skies that would best be described as UK-like, namely solid grey overcast. We did have a sunny day three or four days ago and a couple of afternoons that brightened but lasting impression is one of grey.

Today we managed a morning walk into Fanjeaux for the bread run and enjoyed a coffee at the Café des Arts. On our way back, since we had decided it was definitely time to move on, we called in at the farm to pay for our 6-night stay.

As we were descending from the farm to the campsite it began spitting. We had timed our return well because, shortly after re-joining Frodo, it began raining properly, at first relatively lightly but quite soon with more intent. It began chucking it down and thrashed for the rest of the afternoon. Our bike cover was transformed into a paddling pool or two. It’s the summer solstice, we’re in the south of France and the weather is crap.

It rained all evening. I can’t wait to move on.

This year’s spring and early summer (if you count this as summer before the solstice) has been famously atrocious, not only in the UK but in a lot of France as well. Although farmer Luc at Les Brugues, Fanjeaux, says late winter and spring were quite dry here, I have never seen such a lack of insects around and over his irrigation lake. We’ve seen ones and twos of a couple of handfuls of odonata species but the numbers are dreadful. It really is pitiful.

There is a dearth of birds on the lake, too. A resident Grey Heron is sometimes to be seen, who does his/her best to eat some of the fish but we need more, and preferably something that will take huge fish measuring half a metre. A pair of large Pike would be handy. We saw a Mink here last year but not now.

We’ve been forced to use a different pitch because someone was occupying our favoured pitch for Frodo, and this has proved quite successful. We’ve heard a decent collection of birds from our new vantage point. Using the Merlin app to recognise bird calls we apparently have a Wryneck locally, though we’ve haven’t managed to see it.

Our usual suspects include the good ol’ Chaffinch, Serins, Blackcaps, Starlings (which may be Spotless), Goldfinches and the delightfully fluty-sounding Golden Oriole, amongst others.

Chief amongst the others, certainly for entertainment value, has been a small collection of Spotted Flycatchers. These fabulous little birds have tirelessly been using various posts around our pitch as vantage points from which to hunt.

Early one morning (just as the sun was rising – well, early for me, that is), I spotted a Spotted Flycatcher regularly using a post with the sun behind it. I thought that might make an interesting subject if I could get it with backlit wings. I positioned a chair, focussed on the post and waited with my camera on “pro capture mode”, which buffers and discards shots until you fully depress the firing button.

It’s a handy feature but still relies on a good deal of fortune when it comes to wing position, which is entirely random. I kept trying as the bird was launching itself after a fly and I think I managed one half-way reasonable attempt.

Then I realised that the bird returning to the post might actually produce something better. Once the bird had taken off, I’d been stopping. Now I decided to keep going and wait for it to return. At last, one of my attempts, and only one, produced something I really like, the Flycatcher just about to settle on the post again, with its wings flared..

I don’t know how long I sat trying but I managed to fire off 861 images (the camera runs at 10 frames per second in this mode). I kept just a small handful. Thank Darwin I wasn’t using real film.

Any regular readers of this will know that I’ve been monitoring dragonflies and damselflies on this site for many years. It used to be an absolute haven for odonata. Following the admittance of a Koi Carp farmer many years ago, the populations crashed. Last year we saw very few. Though the fish farmer is no more, the populations don’t appear to be recovering, probably because the lake is still full of huge Grass Carp and still some Koi.

We made a circumperambulation of the lake seeing almost nothing; even less than last year. So, having almost completed the circle, I was very surprised to see an inundated Emperor dragonfly struggling on the surface of the water. I know I shouldn’t interfere but I couldn’t stand by and watch this beautiful creature drown. I extended my monopod and offered it a lifeline. It naturally grabbed it enthusiastically.

It was a female Lesser Emperor (Anax parthenope). I picked her off my monopod onto my hand. She stayed and repeatedly cleaned her eyes with her forelegs.

She remained on my hand, drying off and, perhaps, warming up from my body heat after her chilling experience. She had lost most of her left fore-wing but eventually she exercised her remaining wings and then flew off, less strongly than one might expect but at least she could fly.

Later in the afternoon we were visited by a small critter, about 6mm long, than seemed keen on our black camping table. I broke out the small camera and macro lens to try to capture it, though being dark against black, it felt tricky. All was well though. It’s a Plant Hopper that seems to think it’s a Table Hopper (Issus coleoptratus). Very cute.

As we hadn’t begun by knowing where we’d end up yesterday, we weren’t initially sure where to head to today. Normally from here, there’d be no debate, we’d drop into Les Brugues at Fanjeaux, at least for a couple of days, to catch up with people who had now become firm friends.

This year is far from normal, though. Not only has Britain been suffering atrocious spring and early summer weather but so has France – at least, northern France. Reading an article on the Beeb, the reason is apparently that blasted Jetstream which, for reasons best known to itself, is turning so far south over the Atlantic that it is smacking into Spain when it veers east. At this time of year it would be expected to be north of the southern part of the British Isles. The Met Office can currently see no end it sight to the rubbish weather. Oh joy!

The forecast for the coming weekend has been pretty much pants over the whole of France. We were thinking of heading for the Mediterranean coast near Mèze, thence to Provence. Provence, though, looks pretty much full ‘cos that’s what everyone in France has been doing.

An updated forecast suggested that Fanjeaux may not be quite as bad as originally thought so we adjusted our sights and decided to go there after all.

‘T was a mere 160kms from Donzac to Fanjeaux so we had time to go and look at the village of Donzac before setting sail. We wandered into the village and had a coffee at a local store. The place is filled with Olympic rings and Olympic Torch markers beside the road which made us think that perhaps the torch would pass through here on its journey to Paris.

Having wandered around the village and seen a number of inventive bird box art exhibits, we returned to Frodo to hit the road for Fanjeaux. After a brief stop at the motor van service point to dump our waste water and fill up the fresh, we were on the road.

The journey happily was a breeze, Toulouse was flowing smoothly and we were soon nearing Bram, just below Fanjeaux, for a shopping stop at their Carrefour supermarket.

From there, we arrived at Les Brugues to find a sign saying they were absent for the afternoon and to go and site yourself.

We did and, since a tent had grabbed our favoured Frodo pitch, we found another which seems very suitable.

‘T was time to move on. We had originally intended to stay in Arçais for four days but, with our late lamented friend’s formalities over, we had stayed for eight, largely because the weather was favourable and we could now have time to ourselves.

Overnight we had had rain, occasionally quite heavy, but the ground looked OK this morning. We did our packing up duties, including filing Frodo with fresh water (our 100 ltr tank had lasted the whole eight days) and prepared to set sail for … we weren’t sure where but we’d work it out as we headed south. Or, rather, Francine would.

Finally I disconnected the electrics and climbed into the driving seat. I turned the key Frodo’s engine gave a reluctant half turn over then stopped. A couple of messages flashed up on the screen:

1. Fuel tank low, 3kms to empty [OK];
2. Hill start assist not available [OK], pre-collision warning not available [OK].

No, of course it’s not friggin’ OK.

Another oddity was that the fuel gauge slowly began climbing whereas usually it jumps up to the current level.

#1 was complete bollocks, I’d very deliberately topped up our tank at the supermarket as we arrived; it was full. Clearly I hadn’t leaked 60ltrs of diesel into the grass, I’d have noticed.

#2 was interesting ‘cos I didn’t even know I should have had hill start assist but that was all, I could care less. Pre-collision warning I did know about and it sometimes fails in some conditions (condensation over the sensor?) in an earlyish morning.

I did care about the engine not starting. I turned the key again with exactly the same result. A third turn of the key changed nothing, I was beginning to feel stuck and muttered, “I think we’re f****d”, to Francine, as I began to think of invoking Red Pennant assistance.

In a last desperate measure I turned everything off hoping to reboot the system and begin Frodo’s pre-flight procedures again. With much relief, after an initial sluggish turn over, the engine turned over a second time and burst into life. [SIGH]

I think Frodo liked his pitch in Arçais so much that he didn’t want to leave.

I wasn’t about to turn the engine off. I had wondered about a flat battery but, like the non empty tank, why would that be? We’ve been stationary for eight days before with no hitch. With the crazy warning messages, I could only think of moisture from last night’s rain causing a glitch.

Engine still running in case it was a low battery, I retrieved our levelling blocks and headed for our first stop which was a motor vehicle servicing point on the other side of Arçais to empty our grey water. I left the engine running while I did this, too.

Our next stop was to be at the Super-U in Magné, the same supermarket where I had filled Frodo’s diesel tank, to fill our fridge. Here, I would have to turn off the engine but I’d travelled 15kms so, you never know.

We shopped and returned to Frodo. Francine loaded the fridge. I turned the ignition and all was well, the fuel gauge leapt up to full, no stupid messages appeared and the engine fired faultlessly.

We were on our way to somewhere.

Somewhere turned out to be an Aire de Camping Car in a tiny village called Donzac. Tis was one of the same chain we’d used at Troyes. Francine tapped a few things into the automated accueil machine, coughed up a princely €7 for the night including electricity and water. How cheap is that? Added to this the site was all gravelled so we’d have no issue getting stuck in mud.

The site partly surrounded the village fishing lake; it was a very pleasant environment. In our usual unsociable fashion we found ourselves the end pitch overlooking nothing but a patch of grass and a hedge with no need to stare at any neighbours.

We’ve made these vehicle systems too clever but not clever enough. If your AdBlue tank runs dry, your diesel vehicle just won’t start. I’m now wondering if this was a similar “refuse to start” situation because it thought I had no fuel. The trouble is, when the warning system itself fails you’re stuffed for no good reason. I’ve got a fuel tank full and the battery is fine, just go for pity’s sake.

All went smoothly for our late, lamented friend’s celebration of life. We had intended to move on on Monday 10th but, since we have a very pleasant pitch on the pleasingly rural campsite in Arçais, and with the weather looking set fair here until Friday, we’ve extended our stay. This has given us a chance to explore the area on our bikes a little, having already had a few opportunities to explore on foot.

Our visits to the marais have spanned 18 years but we had a gap of about eight years up until 2023. When we returned then, which turned out to be the last time we’d see our friend, the change in the marsh seemed remarkable.

The Marais Poitevin is a network of canals and drainage ditches of various sizes; the French have five names for canal depending on size and perhaps purpose. It is called the Venice Verte and earned that nickname due many of its water courses being utterly smothered in green duck weed. This example is from 2006.

Our earlier visits predated my obsession with dragonflies but we’ve always been keen on nature and the marsh was a haven for it. We subsequently found it to be a good hunting ground for dragonflies, hence our continued visits.

Something has changed and quite dramatically. We are not seeing canals carpeted in green. Indeed, I don’t think we’ve seen any green covering at all; all look much like this.

It’s not just the green that’s missing, the plethora of dragonflies seems to have become a paucity of dragonflies. The small canal and ditches surrounding our campsite used to be home to many Orange Featherleg (Platycnemis acutipennis) damselflies, now there are none. When we wandered along one of the larger water courses on the way to our friends’ house, last year we saw a handful of Blue Chaser (Libellula fulva) dragonflies, this year we saw none. In previous years we had seen many. Some of recent bike rides have taken us over bridges that spanned several water courses where we were used to seeing various odonata, this time we saw none at all but one point where we saw a handful of one species.

Birdlife may also have been affected. We are used to hearing the frenetic song of the European Serin but we haven’t heard one. There are still some Golden Orioles singing but we haven’t heard the subdued “hoo, hoo, hoo” of a Hoopoe.

It’s all quite concerning.

Admittedly, the weather may be playing a part. In the same way that the 2024 weather has been pitiful in the UK, so it has in much of France. Some of the fields of the marsh show obvious signs of flooding and some of the roads have relatively recently been closed due to floods. Indeed, our campsite has only relatively recently opened after being water-logged.

Flooded ground would ruin the food source of Hoopoes.

We were told that sewage used to be discharged into the waters of the marsh. Relatively recently a sewage system has apparently been put in and the act cleaned up. That should be a good thing, surely, but is that responsible for the lack of duck weed? It looks as if the whole ecology of the marsh has altered.

Late breaking update: we’ve walked further along the water course below our friends’ house and have, at last, seen some odonata activity, including some Orange Featherlegs (Platycnemis acutipennis) and a few Blue Chasers (Libellula fulva). So, they may be much reduced in number but at least some remain.

It began with Francine getting excited about being able to do laundry. There is a washing machine on site but it requires le guardien also to be on site to kick it off; yesterday he wasn’t. Today was also sunny so Francine’s laundry would dry well.

While the machine was on its 1-hour cycle, we went on a swift bike trip to look at a former orchid field just outside the Parc Ornithologique, a bird park featuring the birds of the Marais Poitevin. We’d seen the orchids one year, then taken someone else to see them but in the intervening 24 hours the field had been faucharged [mowed]. Sad. When we got there today, it had suffered the save fate. Sometimes the French pay attention to their orchids and protect them, sometimes they don’t.

While we were sitting waiting for lunchtime, the laundry safely on the line, our French voisin [neighbour], who seems to have no English but enjoys talking to all and sundry, asked if we liked oysters. Bien sûr. He asked for a plate and proceeded to load it up with 10 large oysters, apparently from La Rochelle. Who says the French aren’t friendly?

Now I’d got an opening conundrum. I pressed the foil cutter of a corkscrew into service and that worked quite well. We were soon tucking in to an unexpected seafood feast. Our neighbour seemed to like his with vinegar. Had we had a lemon we may have had a squeeze of lemon juice but really, we just like the taste of the sea.

After another afternoon bike ride we had to decide what to do for dinner with pairs of chicken legs and wings. We’d got a remaining half portion of paella rice so needed some more, if paella was to be the answer (as it often is). The little local shop had risotto rice but no paella rice. Still, they’re both short grained rice so how bad could a mixture be? For a vegetable we used the seasonal white asparagus that everyone loves so much over here. In a nod to its mixed heritage, we christened the new gastronomic feast risella and very good it was, too.

Here’s the reason we have been taking a rather convoluted route into Europe.

We began by going through the Hook of Holland to north-eastern Netherlands to Havelte. Then we had to tack back west and south, more or less all the way across France towards La Rochelle on the western coast, about half way down. We were making for Arçais in the Marais Poitevin.

The reason: a friend of ours and former colleague of mine in a previous life, who lived in Arçais and, indeed, had taken up French citizenship, had passed away from Covid in January this year. He had only only one lung from birth and so, having contracted Covid, he had little in the way of resources to fight it. He passed away in La Rochelle hospital.

Meanwhile, while we were attacking Arçais from the east, another pair of friends, also former colleagues, were moving down towards Arçais from the north-east. With more ground to cover, they’d be arriving later in the day than would we. We were all intent on joining in a celebration of life to be held on Saturday, a private cremation having taken place much earlier in the year.

Our journey from Bourges was an easy 180 kms. We planned our route to stop at a supermarket close to our destination, stocked up on supplies and fuel, then continued to the campsite at Arçais. Le guardian, Dom,  seemed to remember us from last year and showed us to an excellent pitch. We snagged an adjacent pitch for our friends who would be arriving later that afternoon.

All was well. Time for a beer.

Later in the afternoon we headed up to our friends’ place in the village and managed to lend several hands helping to erect a marquee for the weekend’s formalities.We pitched in with our French and the locals showed off their English. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the occasion, albeit for a sad reason.

While we were engaged in the erection process [!] our other pair of friends duly turned up at the campsite and got themselves settled. Marquee complete, we returned to the campsite to join them for a pre-prandial.

Well, it has to be done.

The Maison de la Nature was open today so we hopped back on our e-bikes to try the 11 kms from Rosnay.

I’m still trying to get used to the 5 power levels of assistance available on my e-starli E28. Most of what I’ve done, which is very little, has been on power level 1. That gives you a bit of a kick to get going and then sort of peters out. When you’re actually cycling, level 2 doesn’t seem to do a lot better but level 3 does.

Francine, whose Raleigh bike has just 3 power level settings, seems to leave me standing, which is not how things used to be on traditional bikes. I think I need to go from level 1 to keep up.

We zoomed off and arrived at the Maison de la Nature. It took a while but we eventually found somewhere to lock up the bikes and set about looking for some nature.

There wasn’t a great deal. Odonata were a bit scant, apart from some Broad Scarlets (Crocothemis erythraea)  and what was becoming the dragonfly du jour in these parts, White-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum albistylum). Perhaps most interesting were swarms of frogs blowing out their cheek pouches and croaking loudly after a spot of reproductive fun.

Scintillating it wasn’t. After wandering the boardwalk and track down to the birders hide, we decided to head back. This is where things began to go wrong.

Francine had used (bloody) Google to find a cycle route back to Rosnay. “This looks as though it would be more interesting”, she remarked, chirpily. Shunning the road route we had used to get here, off we set.

We started well enough on another road. Then the route dived off piste and we were soon on a   rough grass track. At first it was not a problem but, with the spring rain that France had suffered, it descended into an occasionally boggy quagmire. The going was slow and arduous and, frankly, our e-bikes were not built for it. Fun it wasn’t.

We came across a group of walkers with a lady trying to have a peaceful wee behind a hedge. I averted my eyes, poor lady. Eventually we came to the end of the off-piste section and re-joined a proper road.

With some relief we eventually came back into Rosnay and back to the campsite for a welcome glass of refreshment.

We won’t be doing that again.