{"id":6273,"date":"2025-07-03T08:41:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T08:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6273"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:50:53","slug":"6-still-at-gondrin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6273","title":{"rendered":"6. STILL AT GONDRIN!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wild howling banshee screamed out over the otherwise peaceful town of Vic Fezensac.\u00a0 What on earth?\u00a0 Is it a Harry Potter display?\u00a0 A low-flying helicopter display team overhead?\u00a0 Ahhh!\u00a0 It’s Wednesday.\u00a0 The first Wednesday of the month.\u00a0 Middle of the day.\u00a0 That explains it!\u00a0 Less than three minutes and serenity descended again.\u00a0 Like nothing had happened!\u00a0 To be true, apart from a few spilt coffees, nothing much HAD happened.<\/p>\n

In 4,500 towns and cities across France there is a test sounding of the sirens, once a month.\u00a0 This is part of the Syst\u00e8me d’Alerte et d’Information des Populations (SAIP).\u00a0 The purpose of these tests is to ensure the sirens are in working order.\u00a0 Which is a good plan because they are used to alert the population in case of real emergencies such as attacks or natural disasters.\u00a0 The sirens are typically tested around noon, with specific times varying slightly by region (11:45 in the north, noon in the center, and 12:15 in the south).\u00a0 I suppose that feature can be used to tell you which part of France you are in if your sat nav fails!<\/p>\n

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(Just visible on the top of the local church, the characteristic four-way “hi-fi” system can be seen.)<\/p>\n

If you remember, sirens (of a different sort) recently featured scantily clad – or totally un-clad – in a recent episode.\u00a0 I discovered some interesting “facts” while checking the information above.<\/p>\n

1. Sirens and mermaids are distantly related species.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 While sirens are basically bad news, mermaids are good citizens.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Because of “2” they are always fighting each other.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Sirens sing nonsense songs to lure sailors into the sea – but this only works on male sailors who may become enchanted.\u00a0 Female sailors just hear recitals of cookery books.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Both species fear octopuses.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Sirens also fear their own song.\u00a0 If it fails to work on the boy sailors, it is fatal to themselves.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Sirens have never appeared at Glastonbury.<\/p>\n

OK.\u00a0 Back to reality…\u00a0 After 9 days on pitch no 15, we decided to delay departure but we have to move camp.\u00a0 About 50 metres to the east.\u00a0 But what about the awning?\u00a0 With assistance from Marcel and Klazenia, we unpegged it and took the poles out.\u00a0 But we hit a snag.\u00a0 I couldn’t unlock the wheel clamp.\u00a0 This could be a problem!<\/p>\n

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Marcel ironically suggested I was using the wrong key!\u00a0 How could I be?\u00a0 There is only one wheel clamp key on the keyring.\u00a0 Twenty minutes later we were getting nowhere.\u00a0 Marcel had had a good go.\u00a0 But even his trucking strength and experience was no match for the lock.\u00a0 Glenda and Klazenia made some exceptionally useful suggestions from a distance.\u00a0 Then I had a brainwave.\u00a0 Maybe I was using the wrong KEYRING!\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 Problem solved!\u00a0 I still had the key for the old lock on the car keyring!\u00a0 Just don’t tell Marcel.<\/p>\n

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So, now we can now complete the manoevre.\u00a0 The same one we did the first time we visited this site.\u00a0 Pitch 15 to 13.\u00a0 This time with a non skeletal awning hanging off the side of the caravan like the train of a wedding dress.\u00a0 Except it wasn’t white and it was being carried sideways by two bridesmaids and a page boy with the best man controlling the mover!<\/p>\n

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Moving complete.<\/p>\n

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Awning back up as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of country in France.\u00a0 There’s no shortage in the Gers.\u00a0 We took a tour to the south of camp.\u00a0 Lots of tiny villages:\u00a0 Bezian …<\/p>\n

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… Montesquiou …<\/p>\n

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… and Le Isle de No\u00e9 …<\/p>\n

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… to name but a few.\u00a0 As you can see, they all have no sign of inhabitants.\u00a0 Of course, there is a saying about mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!\u00a0 Maybe if we returned as dusk fell, all the locals would be dancing in the street.\u00a0 But, somehow, I doubt it!\u00a0 Possibly, if we came back in July or August, there would be street parties every evening.<\/p>\n

We spent another 10 days at Gondrin.\u00a0 The days got a little longer and the pool got warmer by the day.<\/p>\n

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Something to do with daytime air temperatures reaching into the mid thirties and peaking at an unwelcome 41\u00b0C.\u00a0 Spending time in a tin box on wheels in those conditions was not only discombobulating, but actually rather unpleasant.\u00a0 Luckily we have the awning in place!<\/p>\n

One evening, after a particularly warm few days, Pam called on everyone to tell them to batten down the hatches.\u00a0 There was a rather nasty storm approaching from the Southwest.\u00a0 The sky went from a pleasantly coloured dark blue to a threatening orange.<\/p>\n

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Then black as the ace of spades.\u00a0 The breeze upgraded to a ferocious wind.\u00a0 The sky lit up with thousands of lightening flashes.<\/p>\n

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(Lightening strikes as the storm rolled in!)<\/p>\n

The rain started abruptly and rapidly upgraded to hail.\u00a0 And hail on a caravan is another unpleasant experience.\u00a0 Like someone dropping hundreds of marbles on the roof at 100 mph.\u00a0 Disarming, to say the least.<\/p>\n

Then it was all over.\u00a0 The storm disappeared to the Northeast.\u00a0 The trail of destruction became clear in the morning.\u00a0 \u00a0One caravan was missed by half a tree …<\/p>\n

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… there were lesser branches down all over the place …<\/p>\n

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… and Pam and Claudia’s house was short of a number of roof tiles.\u00a0 But normal tranquil campsite life got going again in a couple of days.<\/p>\n

We visited Vallon-sur-Baise one day.\u00a0 Or rather we tried to!\u00a0 The main entry roads were barricaded.\u00a0 “Routes barr\u00e9es”.\u00a0 We found a side street that locals were still using and joined a slow procession on tiny, narrow, “not-designed-for-cars” alleyways.\u00a0 This eventually spilt us into the bastide’s main square.\u00a0 Totally jammed with a fair being set up for my birthday.\u00a0 Actually, for the F\u00eate de music.\u00a0 A festival held every year all over France to celebrate my birthday!\u00a0 The fair setter-uppers were none too keen to find a foreign car in the traffic jam.\u00a0 We just pretended that Brexit had never happened and casually departed the town.\u00a0 So much for a quiet drink under the arches.<\/p>\n

Well, you are going to have to remember that we are in the Valley of the River Baise.\u00a0 I need to stop this and get organised (we leave for home tomorrow!)<\/p>\n

… and who said there were no sirens in The Netherlands?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Glenda says she has some great recipes!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wild howling banshee screamed out over the otherwise peaceful town of Vic Fezensac.\u00a0 What on earth?\u00a0 Is it a Harry Potter display?\u00a0 A low-flying helicopter display team overhead?\u00a0 Ahhh!\u00a0 It’s Wednesday.\u00a0 The first Wednesday of the month.\u00a0 Middle of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6301,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273\/revisions\/6301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}