Touring France in a motorhome Days Forty and forty-one

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October 6^th – day forty.

Midday and Maggie is not out of bed. She is exhausted, drained, washed out; living on water and paracetamol.  Sleep is what she needs now. I discover during the course of the day that I have hooked up to a reverse polarity bollard. I hadn’t noticed but in my tired state I panic a little and put out a plea for help on the Autosleeper Facebook forums. Will the EC700 unit be OK? Will I have done any permanent damage to the moho, our phones, laptop etc? As I have come to expect, back comes contradictory advice which takes another hour or so to sift through, question, wait for replies and generally sort out!  Yes, the EC700 will cope, no you won't fry the laptop; yes there are dangers with it. Many suggest I make my own reverse polarity adapter or just switch live and neutral wires in my EHU cable for the interim on this site. Bored, I go one better, discovering a smaller, spare EHU cable in the deepest external locker recesses. I reverse live and neutral on the end that clips into the van and instantly produce a complete ‘reverse polarity’ EHU cable - well labelled of course – a good temporary fix.

Sat in the sun, with friendly turtle doves and small spiders under awning with me, whilst Mag sleeps fitfully inside, I am realising how lucky we have both been. I cannot begin to imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t had both covid jabs. Well, given the pandemic, I can but truthfully, I don’t want to go there in my thinking.

Around me, French motorhomers’ are discussing Moho life; some are getting dinner tables ready. My soundscape is one of distant traffic, French conversation, cooing doves and clinking pots and pans. Age demographic? I think with no disrespect to our fellow motorhomes, I'm probably the youngest on the site at 60 although it’s hard to tell. Some are very grey haired, look around early fifties but are probably mid-seventies. They all look fit and healthy.

My evening passes with me trying to understand how to process images of Andromeda. I have the data but not the skill to tease out the intricate details and colourings; so infuriating. Maggie continues to sleep fitfully but I think she is slowly on the mend after a few horrendous days, brave soul that she is. She had me worried; I mean REALLY worried!

October 7^th – day forty one

Rough night for both of us. Really rough! We got little sleep between us. This morning we are feeling fragile, beyond what words can describe, and whilst we both try to remain positive, we are physically if not mentally wrecked. The much talked about covid lag - I snooze most of the morning and we spend the afternoon outside under the awning in chairs, leaving all the windows open to try and allow some airflow through the habitation area. My second covid test shows a positive reaction; the two red lines as strong as they were a week ago. It seems I've taken a retrograde step backwards - headache, muscle ache and dizzy spells once more. I trudge back up to the pay machine and book another night. We are trapped in a perpetual Groundhog Day - covid imprisonment on an Aire in the south of France. It could be worse! It could be raining!

Today's excitement comes in the 100m dash to the Spar market to purchase some groceries so that we don’t starve to death instead. A ‘hit and run raid’ I call it. ‘In and out’ with minimal contact with anyone. We are the only British couple on a site of 140 mohos, all overwhelmingly French. They must think we are so isolationist and clearly of a BREXIT mentality. If only they really knew.