In the wash-up with the mountain view is a notice board. Lots of local info. A stunning chateau in its own gardens, open to visitors, beckons. We’re less than five miles away. What could be simpler. We leave early. Pat leads the way, but then it becomes clearly signed. So I switch her off. French signing seems to work on the basis that they point you in the general direction of a place or thing. You only get to know you’ve gone too far when the place you’re looking for is no longer signed. We hit countryside and do a U-turn – eventually. Beastie is not good at U-turns. Though he’s getting lots of practice.
We park Beastie up next to a petite counterpart. I step across to have a natter MOHO-man to MOHO-man with the owner. It’s what we do. We do a lot of waving too when out on the road. We’re like a secret society. Passing clandestine furtive messages. When you’re a novice you’re ultra keen to appear as if you’re not a novice. So you wave at anything that vaguely resembles an oncoming MOHO and get some queer looks into the bargain. There’s a whole Semaphore system of signing. The most popular being the one-armer. Palm facing. Chief Big Horn style. Indicating “I see you MOHO-man, you see me?” There’s the one finger. Hands still on steering wheel. “I see you novice”. There’s the Full Monty two-armer from baby-beasties acknowledging MOHO-man with Big-Beastie. There must be a hierarchy too. Yesterday I got a one-armer plus headlight flash. He must have been a Grand Master. The French MOHO-man is from Saint-Étienne and doesn’t speak English. I’m able to glean from him that the Chateau is “fermé aujourd’hui” What! On a Tuesday? “Oui”
Bye Bye Morning . . . .