I-an, I-an, Hutch-in-son!

I awoke to the sound of the wind whistling in the rafters. It’s a classic tune, but not what you want to hear at 8am. I got up, made myself a cup of tea and settled down with Iris for an hour or so. I had planned on taking Mr Rusty out for a spin, but with each new wail of the wind around the house, my enthusiasm dwindled until it was snuffed out completely. Another time maybe.

Ian was driving into Tournon d’Agenais for some provisions, so I went along for the ride. Tournon is an interesting bastide town set high atop a hill with the road winding around it like the spiral of a helter-skelter, affording spectacular views across Lot-et-Garonne. In the old town we stopped to buy some bread, but zut alors! - the boulangerie was fermé. I took a look around, while Ian studied a plan of a randonnée on a map on a notice board. Now I must admit I did not know what a randonnée was, so in case somebody else reading this doesn’t either, I will explain. A randonneé is a planned walk through the French countryside, marked out with symbols on trees, fences and gateposts which you follow. See, easy. Ian attempted to trace the walk onto a piece of paper, but that just looked like a map of Jersey, so James Bond style I took a digital photo of the map to transfer onto a real map back at home. Are you with me so far? Wake up at the back!

We drove down to a small corner shop-type place and bought some odds and ends before driving home. Oh no, forgot the wine. Bugger.

I got on with the job of transferring the randonnée route from the image now on my laptop screen onto a map. It all worked out remarkably well, and it transpired we could join the randonnée just ten minutes walk from the house. We agreed to set off after lunch. Then Michael and André arrived…for dinner, which took us all by surprise, but Karen whipped up a feast of delicious mushroom omelettes in no time at all, and M&A accepted the challenge of a three and a half hour afternoon walk with good grace, and off we went.

It was a spectacular walk, and apart from one dodgy bit where the arrows contradicted each other (one said go this way, but when you went that way there was another one which said don’t go this way) it was plain sailing. Having set off before three o’clock, we made it home just as is was getting dark, shortly after six-thirty. Quite an achievement when all was said and done.

K&I cooked the most wonderful dinner of roast lamb, roast potatoes, celeriac and baby leeks, and a historic apple crumble, and a seemingly endless supply of superb wines. Later on we tested out some ideas for our new board game, and decided it needed some fine-tuning.