We’re further south yet the daytime temperature has dropped 12 degrees. Full togs on as we scoot up to Lac de Pierre-Percée. Hang up the helmets and navigate the south eastern woods bordered shoreline of this man-made lake. A quick sarnie (wishing we’d brought a hot flask on this trip) before U-turning back.
We’re moving even further south tomorrow, heading towards the foot of the French Alps. Yours truly hopes it’ll get warmer the further down we go, but rumour has it is that it’s going to get nippier. So, we decide to nip to the local l’eclerc hypermarche. We need to top up on food and LPG for the on board heating and cooking systems. Tomorrow we want to make an early getaway.
What transpired, may find its way into the Great British Book of MOHO Mutterings.
Under pressure. My hands and eyes with less co-ordination than a blind amputee. Woman in the pay booth was under pressure too. I wasn’t helping. Cars piling up like it’s clocking off time and people itching to get home. Problem was I couldn’t see which LPG adaptor to use. She rushed out of her booth and Frenched something to me. Que? Rushed back in. I fiddled some more. Getting hotter. So was she. She rushed out again. This time faster than Usain Bolt leaving his blocks. Adaptor in her right hand, relay style. (Perhaps I wasn’t the first idiot to cross her path.) Fitted perfectly. She filled the LPG (PLG over here) gas tank for me. Took a little under ten seconds. A new Olympic and World Record perhaps? No more than one euro 70 cents worth could be pumped in. She looked at me with eyes rolling back in their sockets. Like a Great White’s just before it takes its first jawful. Seems we didn’t need a top-up. Oops.
Happy just to have negotiated Beastie out of the super twisty fill up area, we line up opposite the supermarche car park. 2.8 metre barrier ahead. Still feeling discombobulated I didn’t think straight. Instead just went straight. Suddenly and rather surprisingly, it sounded as if a herd of Buffalo were trampling, head to toe, over the full length of Beastie. Our heads turned to meet. Questioning eyebrows. Mouths gaping like a couple of old basking sharks. Simultaneous realisation of what’s just transpired.
Here’s a Multiple Choice Question for you.
How do you get a 2.9 metre high Beast under a 2.8 metre barrier? Is it . . .
a) Bumpily? b) Noisily? c) Embarrassingly? or d) All of a, b & c?
Beastie caused quite a stir on the other side.
Here’s another question for you . . .
How do you get a 2.9 metre high Beast under a 2.8 metre barrier again?
You go and ask the nice man at customer services and repeat many times . . “Je suis un am-ber-seal”
And the reason they don’t allow access to “Camping Cars”? (Check out picture above?)
Yes. You’ve got it. They have provided Beastie spaces this side of the barrier.
Nuff said . . . .