Bob & Leftie go Large: THIRD TIME LUCKY ?????

We'll see! The day started of well enough. Picked an Aire about two & a half hours away, 84 miles, said goodbye to Peter & Kay & set off. The first part of the journey was fine, out through the village through a little bit of countryside & into a quickly changing landscape. Long straight roads for miles & miles with forest on both sides, the first fields of sunflowers lifting their heads to follow the sun across the sky. Fields of Maize & a glimpse of my first Chateau on a distant hill then the vines, vines as far as the eye could see. That was when the trouble began. Sue the sat nav is brilliant but she's not sat next to me, she is a voice from a satalite she doesn't have a clue how tall Leftie is or how wide or long so she sends me the way she thinks I would like to go,to the affect that the roadsthrough the old town of Thouars which was built long before motorhomes wasn't compatible with Leftie. Having followed her instructions to point of no return I spent a buttock clenching half hour or so inching down ever narrowing streets & doing almost impossible left & right turns feeling well out of my comfort zone.

Two more reasons have occurred to me today why need a travelling companion ( apart from being a companion ) 1. to take photos of all the wonderful things I'm passing as well as the nightmare moments seeing as I tend to be too involved trying not to customise Leftie to take them myself & 2. To keep me calm and help me reverse Leftie before his wing mirrors fold in. I did eventually make it to the Aire but wasnt happy as the campsite it was supposed to be next to was closed & there was no other vans on the Aire. I looked in the book & chose another Aire some fifteen miles away & set off once more down some very iffy roads, promising God that if I didn't meet anything coming the other way I'd go to church on Sunday. Prayers answered I arrived at the second Aire only to discover it was worse than the first one, just a concrete post with a tap strapped to it and a gravel car park. So back to the book.

As I write this I am parked up in the third Aire & it seems very pleasant although worryingly there is no one else here. Still it's only early afternoon so I might get company yet. If not Iight have to sleep with one eye open and me best dog barking impression at the ready. It's a pleasant little village so I should be fine :-