Where's Frankie?

La Maladie

Monday 3rd November

Other than a bit of strong rain, last night was very peaceful but we woke up very early. Lucy has been complaining of a low stomach ache for a couple of days and this morning she was convinced that she was about to kick the bucket, or even worse, have to speak to a French doctor. Since neither of us have ever had a doctor with English as a first language I really couldn’t see the problem but she was up and dressed and had a bag packed for a lengthy stay in hospital.

We were going to stay another day at the lake but Limoges was just down the road and they were sure to have a large emergency medical centre all ready to wheel her into casualty and say “mon dieu, q’est que c’est?”

Never one to panic except when Frankie is hanging backwards over a chasm, I had a look in our Lonely planet guide to France which informed me that the best place to go would be a pharmacy and again, the best place for one of those would be Limoges. It was only a short trip, mostly on motorway but right at the last exit there were signs up saying there had been an accident on the motorway, part of it was closed and we had to leave so we headed into town (which was far larger than either of us expected) and found a 24 hour emergency pharmacy.

The signs for this “accident” started over a mile before we were taken off the motorway, first we had the flashing signs saying pull over and then lines and lines of traffic cones. It looked more like a permanent road closure than something that had happened this morning.

The pharmacist listened to me explain what the problem was and he has prescribed some huge pills (that Lucy thought were suppositories but they were far too large for that). She has to take two tablets twice a day for three days, total cost €1.80. We didn’t really fancy looking around Limoges, the traffic was very heavy due to the road closure and I felt it would be unfair for Lucy to walk very far from a toilet so we had a little pow wow and decided to head for Claremont Ferrand, we both fancied visiting the volcanic area to the south.

It wasn’t a lot of fun getting out of Limoges. Stella fancied the bit of motorway that was closed so after a while we turned her off, headed south as far as we could and then switched her on again. We aimed for an aire at Lac de Vassiviere (Number 234, Limousin & Auvergne) which had a very similar description to last nights aire so off we went stopping for lunch by the side of the road which was meant to be at a good scenic place, but wasn’t. We moved on and eventually stopped at a town called Eymoutiers and had a look around. We soon found a launderette so took all our washing in and gave it a good seeing too.

While we were waiting I had a look round to see if there were any free wifi spots and found one in a doorway, 20 metres from the launderette so managed to download the last four days blog (sorry if you’re getting feast and famine on the blogs), answered a couple of emails and then went back and sorted out the clothes.

It was only as we left the town that we noticed how lovely Eymoutiers is. I didn’t have my camera to hand but down by the river it was really lovely – try and visit on a sunny day.

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We got to the lake about 5pm, far later than we like arriving at an aire but the place is deserted. This is the view out of Frankies window, the hills / mountains are a bit higher than last night and some of the roads have been a little butt clenching, steep, narrow and clinging to the sides of deep valleys. he wind is howling across the water and hitting us side on and making Frankie rock a little

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To the left you can see where the service machine used to be, next to it is the wastewater drain that has been covered over. There are no signs any where and no other motorhomes – do you think they’ve closed this aire and not told us? There was one guy further along the road who finished work at 5.30pm and he drove past us without a word so we are staying here the night and seeing what happens.

Lucy is feeling much better, she’s off her food but our current plan is to arrive in Clermont Ferrand the day after her tablets have all been used up and if she is no better she can jump on a plane and go home.  SORRY, I meant to say, visit another pharmacist.

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