Wednesday 1 June
As we were only doing about 150 km today there wasn't any rush to get away again. We showered then had breakfast before packing up; it was 9:30 am when we got away. From Nozay it was only a short distance to the motorway but we went in the wrong direction when we came out of the aire. We ended up doing a circular tour round Nozay before passing the lake at the aire again to find the correct route.
Once I picked up the motorway, N137, it was about 50 km to Rennes and with good weather today I was able to get the speed up to average nearly 60 mph. There was a by-pass around Rennes which was busy but after that it was quieter and motorway driving again; the A84 going to Caens, but we weren't going that far and the cut off to Mont San Michel was after about 75 km.
I was making good time and decided to stop for a cup of tea at a service area on the motorway about 11:00 am. When we got going again it was only about 10 km on the motorway before we turned off to make for Mont San Michel. It was only another 12 km and there was the fair sized town of Ponterson before we got there. I was on the look out for a MacDonald's for their WiFi but couldn't see one but there was a Lidl where Moira went in for a baguette. While she was in the supermarket I checked on the iPad if there was any WiFi in the are but there was nothing showing.
We continued on the 3 km that the TomTom said there was to go for our aire. It was in the village of Beauvoir. We had stayed there before but now it looked entirely different. Last time it was quite small among trees but now it was a large site, practically a campsite. They had built segregated bays for each motorhome with an electric power point. There was also free WiFi, all for €12:50 per night. Moira had to check in at a machine to get a code to open the barrier; it looked like a very good place so we checked in for three nights.
There was room for about 100 'vans but most of the spots were on hard stands and we wanted to try and get TV with the satellite dish. The pegs wouldn't go into the hardstand surfaces but there was a couple of sections with grass so I parked up there. Once we were settled and had the electricity connected it was time for lunch. We logged into the WiFi and managed to download two day's 'Telegraph'. The internet wasn't very good, slow and it kept kicking us out resulting in having to log in again. When the meal was finished we began to try to get TV. I set up the digi box first to make sure that was working all right. Everything was OK so I got the dish set up, the pegs went into the grassy ground with a bit of heavy hammering and the support for the dish was very secure. I was inside watching the signal strength while Moira moved the dish around looking for the satellite. It took a while, as usual, but eventually she found Astra 2 and the BBC was coming through with a good signal. When I was happy that everything was satisfactory I switched from the digi box to the Sky box. This seems to work a lot better and it is easier to find stations with the TV guide. I put it on the radio and we listened to Smooth radio.
Later in the afternoon Moira wanted to check out the village for a boulangerie to get bread in the morning. There were only a few shops about in the village, a couple of 100 m from the aire, and a number of hotels and restaurants. There was a handy boulangerie and an epicery for bread. From the village we cut up to a path beside a canal. This path ran all the way to Mont San Michel which we could see in the distance. We intend to walk that way tomorrow but today we followed the path in the other direction which took us to the back entrance to the aire. There was a signpost there pointing to this path that said '3 km to Mont San Michel', that will be a good walk there and back to test Moira's hip.
When we got in Moira made dinner, another lovely chicken curry using the chicken breast we got from the guy with the broken fridge. Later I tuned the radio on to Radio 4 and the news review programme PM. We didn't get to hear much of it; Suzy phoned first then we got a call from Margaret. Everything is going all right with family and Suzy and Gavin are off on holiday next week to Majorca with the girls. Justin is now redundant from his job but is on 3 months notice that he is 'working' off at home.
When they were off the phone I switched the TV on for 'Eggheads', it was one of the latest ones so we hadn't seen it before. Later we watched the news on Channel 4 before getting the bed made up. This year's 'Springwatch' had started this week but it wasn't very good and went on for 90 minutes. This meant that being an hour ahead of the UK it was 10:30pm jere when it finished. We both fell asleep before it finished.
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