Sunday 28th June 2009

Domaine de Marcilly, Marcilly-sur-Eure (ACSI2009-727) N48.83184 E1.32972

The morning is warm and sunny, a beautiful summers day is promised. Kathleen goes off to church, and after packing up the van, I while away the morning watching the canoeists on the Loire. A whole group of them have arrived, some in cars and vans with their canoe on the roof, and some in a minibus, towing a trailer of canoes. They obviously plan to canoe and camp, as they have camping gear and spare clothing packed into plastic barrels in the canoe, and they launch them into the river and paddle off down stream.

Kathleen returns at about 11:45, and we set off for our next site, which is only about 2.5 hours away, (we think).

The satnav goes on the blink again, with no GPS signal. This time it happens as we are negotiating Dreux. Kathleen has not been paying attention, so has no idea where we are on the map, and we soon become totally lost in a maze of unclassified roads north of Dreux, which are not marked on our map. The problem is that the roads are extremely narrow, fortunately although we flounder around for about an hour before we find our way onto the road we want to be on, we do not meet anything bigger than a Renault Clio coming the other way. Eventually we find the campsite.

The site is more geared up for large static caravans, than tourers, but it is very pretty and well kept. There are three swimming pools, and numerous tennis courts, petang courts (French Boules), and table tennis.

There are not many tourers there, about 15 in total of whom five are GB’ers, including us.

Two of the GB couples have been here for four days so far and are inveterate complainers and reckon it is the worst site they have ever been on, they must have led a charmed life. One of their complaints is that there are no washing machines and no sinks to wash clothes. Well one of our first tasks when we go to a new site is to do a quick scout around and check were all of the vital facilities are ie toilets, showers, dishwashing, clothes washing. So Kathleen having been there four hours explains to them to where to find them (about 50 metres from their pitch as it happens). They are dog walkers, and another of their complaints is that the site is not very good for dogs. I ask you, who chooses a site on the basis that your dog will like it!

The third GB’er has a damned cat with them, the fourth pair (David and Carol) are actually welsh, but appear to be the most normal and likeable of the lot despite that..

The biggest weakness is that there are no shopping facilities onsite (amazingly for a French site, not even bread), and the village while quite close at about 2km, is along a rather busy road and down (and hence up on the way back) a fairly steep hill. Not good if you are cycling back with a pack beer and a few bottles of wine in your backpack!

Our final bit of excitement here occurs when a small Dutch boy (about 2 years old), burns his hand on a part of his parents camping stove. We do not know what has happened at first, but we can hear him crying. David (the Welshman) and Kathleen offer assistance. Despite the fact that Kathleen is/was a nurse, we have virtually nothing in the way of first aid kit, except a (very) few elastoplasts. Fortunately David has some Germoline, which does the trick, after cooling his hand in cold water.