En route pour Chinon : suite

I found it impossible to speed through France. Everywhere - the eyes lit.
There was marvellous scenery and interesting activities. Children laughing and playing.
Signs everywhere were indicating the French way to cross a road or what not to walk on.
Little things can be spellbinding - you just need to keep those eyes open.

And keep them open, I did.

At La Chapelle-sur-Loire, le fleuve Loire coulait avec élégance, au côté la voiture argentée.
This was magnificent and it demanded to be absorbed.
I could stop and be happy here; but more pleasure lay ahead.

We crossed the river just before Chouzé-sur-Loire and dodged around the Centrale nucléaire de Chinon at Avoine with its four active nuclear reactors.

Stepping on it again, we sadly missed most Chinonais except for a quick stop beside the Vienne and a chat with another pretty girl in a roadside café - and the entire complement of happy patrons. They wouldn't let me go; we were laughing so loudly after all that rubbish about the lack of kangaroos on their country roads, Carla Bruni's personal habits and what Ségolène Royal would have done had she won la Présidentielle.

Who needs to hurry ? There was too much information to share, too much laughter and to much to absorb.
Not ONE person thought I was Britannique, - ni Américain !

Our destination, being Assay just south of Chinon, was approaching and maps were pas nécessaire. It was all in my head.

Gavin and Josie with whom we were to share a gîte for a couple of days, would be stoking the BBQ and we had wine, beer - and wine. And a thousand stories to tell.
Gavin est mon bon camarade de classe à l'Alliance Française d'Adelaïde et nous sommes les deux enfants terribles.
(Bonjour Arnaud, Philippe, Geneviève et Marie-Thérèse. Vous devez venir avec moi la prochaine fois !
Je vous montrerai ma France - par mes yeux et vous l'aimerez très bien. )

To the wafting of French BBQ smoke and the sound of French fields hoeing-in to agricultural plaisanteries, we were salivatingly happy and had really forgotten our former dialect. Who cares.

This was France and nothing else existed in the universe !