MONDAY, 21st August 2006 – Cozes to Royan and back.

Important tasks await.

Another lovely morning, and by the time we’d munched out way through some fairly stale pains au chocolate, it was time to sally forth and find a replacement tyre for the one which went kaput yesterday.

Firstly, I asked at the campsite reception if there was anywhere to buy new tyres nearby. Fortunately, the lady behind the desk thought she knew somewhere, which was confirmed by a man loitering around the reception area. “Under the LeClerc supermarket” they said.

I managed to remember to unplug the electric from the side of the van, and put out Maurice’s “Motorvan” sign, to indicate that the pitch was taken. That, and the fact we’d left our table and chairs out in the middle of it should ensure that no one pinched it whilst the van was away.

We found the LeClerc easy enough, but the “underneath” bit was of restricted height. “2.9m” it said, and it’s at times like this that you wish you knew how high your van was. I was pretty sure it was something like 3m from tyre to overcab, or was it a bit less? I decided to not take the risk, and parked it outside the area, and searched for the tyre place. It was actually the other side of the store, a “Feu Vert”. Why it should be called “Green Fire” I don’t know. Thinking about it afterwards, I think it might be “Green Light”, as a traffic lights is called a “feu”. Another anomaly solved.

We looked around the store, and saw that they did indeed do tyres of the correct size, as far as I could remember, as I hadn’t written down the size of the tyre. Durr. The man asked if he could help, I said I needed a tyre for a “camping car, sur le Peugeot Boxer.” Which should have been enough, but he then wandered outside to look for the van to check. I said the van was over the way. He asked if I could bring it across. Seemed a logical request. I complied.

Annie went off to LeClerc, and I brought the van round, and spoke to a different man, who said he could certainly supply a suitable tyre. He brought out what looked like an order pad. “Is it possible to do it today?” I asked, in my best French, with some concern. He vigourously shook his head, as thought it was the most preposterous thing to ask. “It’s a Pirelli tyre,” he said, as though that explained everything. I looked confused. “We sell Michelin.”

And that was the end of it. Not good enough for me.

“Can you fit a Michelin?” I was now beginning to be impressed with my command of the language – most people seemed to understand what I was babbling on about.

“Ce n’est pas possible,” he said. Bad news. It seems that they’re sticklers for the “same tyres on each axle” rule over here. Now I was getting a bit desperate. I didn’t want to have to wait around for two days (maybe more, who knew?) for a tyre to come in. AND it was €116 – about £80 or so if my simple maths was right, which sounded quite expensive. But ahah – it was a spare, therefore not on any axle. Now, by my logic, that would seem to imply that it should even more match the other four tyres, since it may be needed on either the front or the rear axle. But the tyre man could see a desperate foreigner on his holidays, or maybe a chance to earn a quick buck. We strode out to the van, I indicated where it was – in its holder, under the back. He asked, quite reasonably, if I could take the tyre out. “Pour moi, c’est tres dificile” I said, trying my best to look helpless, and indicated my sunbathing gear of shorts, singlet and sandals. He nodded. “Les clefs,” he demanded, and I handed over my keys.

Now, at this point, I wasn’t aware of the procedure. Should I wander off? Should I follow his disappearing back into the shop? Annie had returned, and I recounted the conversations. I then thought I should make sure we would be getting the tyre after all, so I returned to the shop. The man was furiously pressing buttons and clicking a mouse.

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the procedure in a British tyre place for buying a tyre. It’s the same over there. They key in the necessary parameters – in our case, 195/70R15. That pretty much specifies the tyre. They then get screens-full of tyres, line by line, which they scroll through, seemingly searching for some secret key, some token, which says this is the tyre for you. I’ve watched this many times, and I think I know what they’re searching for. It’s the special column, hidden from my view, which says in big, bright letters, stuck to the monitor – PROFIT. I watched as line by line, seemingly endless 195/70R15’s went scrolling by, not deemed good enough for our CampingCar. In truth, he was searching through many identical lines, the only difference between them being customer gullibility factor. For God’s sake – they only sell Michelin tyres, I’ve specified what size and type and speed rating. How difficult can it be?

Eventually, he found a gullibility factor greater than 100%, and said “Oui – retournez a onze hours.” And that was it. We had an hour or so to kill.

We had a coffee in the pleasant café in LeClerc, and we read a copy of the Sunday Mirror, eager to read the headlines about two Big Brother contestants – full story on pages 2,3,4,5,6,8,12. Must be a big story. In the end, it wasn’t a big story, and I skipped to the back pages, and was surprised to see that the Premiership season had started. Round and round we go, plus ca change and all that.

We returned at 10.45, and there was a shiny new tyre under the rear of the van. Who knows what pressure it was pumped up to, or even what sort of tyre it was? It was black, it was round, and it seemed to have an awful lot of tread on it. Seems we’d been earmarked for the tractor tyre, then.

Back to the campsite, and no one had pinched our space, and I made a good job of parking her in between the trees again. I was watched by my elderly neighbour, who was raking leaves. He owned the static caravan to the side of us, and obviously took great pride in it. I started a conversation, asking if it was OK where I’d parked. I didn’t want to cause offence. He was more than happy with our position, and he shook my hand, and told me someone at some time in the past had parked a car and caravan across their plot, and had refused to move it. “Incroyable!” I remarked, and he seemed pleased that I was of a similar mind.

A cup of tea beckoned, and we sat and read for a while. Then it was time to cycle. So we did. Out through the small town, into the countryside, past and through fields of sunflowers, mainly, and corn and a few vineyards. The sun shone, and wind was light (until we turned round to come back), and it was altogether a pleasant experience. On our return journey, about the only place open in the town was the bar, so we stopped, and had a drink and a small carton of frites. We thought we’d earned it.

As the evening progressed, it got closer to “Lotto” time. There was an evening of Lotto planned at the campsite bar. Perhaps ‘bar’ should be in quotation marks. It was a small room, next to the swimming pool, which sold beer and soft drinks from two large fridges. Initially, my image of a campsite bar contained at least one beer pump, and a variety of other alcoholic drinks from chillers behind the counter. Oh, and crisps and possibly frites and pizza, if you’ve a mind. Still, it was a lovely quiet campsite, and you can’t expect someone to create and maintain a facility just for me. Shame, though.

We returned to the van, and had cups of tea, and then vin rose, and read and slept the afternoon away. Rain, light tippy-tapping on the roof, woke me, and I closed vents and rehung bikes.

We were going to enjoy a game of lotto at the bar, but we forgot, and drank more vin rose with our tea.