Taz and Julie add river swimming to sea, and lake swimming

Monday 13^th September – Val de L’Herault

Very relaxing 3 days next to the river Herault. Caught up on dozing, swimming and sunbathing (arf arf). Unfortunately we’ve lost TV so needed some compensation for missing Strictly’s launch.

Went for a walk today and ended up on the wrong side of the river so we bravely decided to ford it. Glad no one was watching but wish we had a video of our epic taming of the river Herault. It was deep enough that we both had to tuck our shorts into our knickers and the current was fast enough for us to be worried about being knocked over. But David had a plan: “Lets hold hands”. So we took it in turns to anchor each other as we tottered across the stony and slimy riverbed. Good job David was holding my hand as I was in danger of being swept away by hysterical laughter. I will treasure the lets hold hands plan as a means of keeping my spirits up when I’m forced to read the SCD newsletter rather than watch the show. And before anyone suggests it – we cant get BBC iPlayer over here.

As we’re nearing the end of our trip I attempted a Davina style “so how has your time in the campervan changed you” interview of David. This is what he came up with”

· There’s life in the old dog yet (not sure which of the 3 of us he was referring to)

· I want to do more trips

· The French aren’t so bad (this is because a mechanic fixed the first Sat TV problem for free)

· Empty the toilet cassette slowly to avoid splashback

I’m compiling my own list which will have this nugget of good advice near the top:

Don’t reverse down a steep drive onto a narrow tarmac road in a long campervan unless you are prepared to have the Police called out (I asked for the Fire Brigade but the Dutch campsite owner over ruled me)