Travels with Doreen

The thing with Doreen, our in-car SatNav, is her need to warn you about non-existent things. She is forever reporting accidents and roadworks that just never eventuate. This is particularly true of roadworks. It seems like every few kilometres she puts her little warning symbol up with how much time it will take to get through it.

However, when you press her warning symbol in order to find out what’s going on, she merely tries to find an alternative route. Which she doesn’t find. You then have the worry of watching the symbol on her screen until it simply vanishes as if it never existed in the first place.

(Linda is the opposite. She doesn’t show anything and just refuses to acknowledge anything will stop her moving forward. We have quite a few arguments about this.)

Roadworks is one thing. What is worse is her habit of throwing up a symbol that means a collision, something we almost had as we drove through Villandry near the end of our drive today. The collisions which, I guess, can happen at any time without warning hold the driver up longer than roadworks. At least according to Doreen.

Our trip from Birac to Villandry took us about four hours but we had a couple of very pleasant stops (one with a picnic) and didn’t see a single collision although Doreen warned us about at least three.

The picnic, by the way, came from Brantome, which we visited first thing for our last chance at the Very Big Breakfast. It was market day in the town and everywhere was a flowing stream of tents and stalls, food and tat in equal measure. Fortunately our cafe was open and very welcoming. And breakfast was excellent as it has been each time.

Today we sat outside and watched the long line of browsing shoppers as they peeked at leather goods, teddy bears and truffles. Mirinda was fascinated by how many ‘fwights’ there were (to quote Sir Walter Elliot) and, to be fair, I totally agree with her. Apart from the very attractive guy with the boisterous kitten on his shoulder and a woman in a scarf, it was like watching a parade of circus freaks trying to drum up business for the evening show.

Anyway, it made it very interesting and, dare I say, a lot of fun.

Something we weren’t prepared for was the amount of English voices in the crowds. Surely they should have been in Riberac. We were quite surprised.

After breakfast, the market proved a rich source of fruit though we went to the patisserie for pastries and the super marche for drinks. Still, in very quick time we had the makings of a picnic to see us on our way out of Brantome and on the road north-ish.

And all was well for a very long time. In fact, up until the final 20 minutes, things couldn’t have been better. We’d stopped for petrol and a driver break (we walked through a little forest and then had a coffee) then, later, we’d stopped at a rest stop for our picnic and a read in the wind (while partly sunny and hazy cloudy, it was rather windy today). We were happily approaching the interchange between the A10 and the A85 when disaster struck.

The interchange is a four way thing. It’s like a cross road but on a massive scale. In order to go left or right it’s important for the driver to get into the correct feeder lane. We followed the directions and were in the correct lane when we realised the way was blocked by a horde of marauding traffic cones. They forced us to go in the completely wrong direction towards the completely wrong place (in this instance Paris which is normally NOT the wrong place as far as we’re concerned).

While this was obviously very annoying and meant an added 15 minute to our journey as we had to travel 10 clicks in the wrong direction, do a sort of spinning top u-turn and come back the 10 clicks to where we started, it also meant we had to pay a toll. Twice.

I wonder, as I write this, whether this is why the French roads are so good. Every now and then they stick a barrier up at an interchange forcing drivers to go through a toll booth then reverse the process getting two payments when none was the norm. They made a very easy €7 from us! I mean it’s not like you have a choice, particularly when your stupid SatNav doesn’t bother telling you about the ACTUAL road blockage. Ever. (Stupid, annoying Doreen.)

Still, it didn’t matter (although Mirinda was convinced we’d never get to Villandry because the blocked slip road meant every road in France would be blocked…forever) and we pulled up at the Chat Courant with very little difficulty.

Though this is not entirely true. This weekend is very busy which seems to make drivers worse than usual. We had one guy coming straight at us at high speed because he figured he had the right of way regardless of who or what was coming towards him. He didn’t move. It was like a very lethal form of ‘chicken.’ Fortunately Mirinda moved aside. He didn’t slow at all.

We then had a lunatic try and overtake us on a very narrow lane when all we were doing was moving to the side to allow a car coming towards us to pass us.

Actually, it just shows how today was all about the travelling when I can’t think of anything else to write about…so, here’s a photo of the Chat Courant welcoming party to make up for it:

That was the ONLY photo I took today.