July 16

It really rained a lot last night and throughout the day. When I got up to go for a walk and to get bread this morning, there was a small black cat curled up on my towel, which was folded up outside on a chair under the tent cover attached to the caravan. He ran off really fast once he saw me in the doorway of the caravan.

Jim and I decided to drive to the airport in Nantes, about 45 minutes away, to deal with my ticket. We also wanted to get to a L’Eclerc store which is basically the French version of Walmart but with much better produce/food, so we could get some rain jackets, etc.

The airport in Nantes is much bigger than the one in Lorient, so we assumed we’d have better luck. And we did, thankfully. I was able to speak, in English – although I had practiced the French for wanting to modify my ticket – to a very friendly and efficient Air France agent. With the change fee and the difference in price for the two tickets, it only cost me 75 euro, which is less than a one way train ticket to Paris. So I’m on the first flight (7:15am) from Nantes to Paris CDG airport on 7/20, which will get me there by 8:30am, with lots of time to spare for any delays or mishaps before my 2:15pm flight to Boston (via Iceland). What a relief!

We did okay at L’Eclerc – I found some short wellie boots and a pair of jeans (they are dangerously close to Mom jeans but they are petite size so my standards were low – I only have one pair of pants so if they get wet, which they did this morning, I’m in a bind – and cold as well. Well worth it.) The jacket selection was lousy, so we got some food (including baking powder so I can finally bake that cake). There was nothing else promising in the huge mall (which included an IKEA) for jackets, so we went to a big sports/outdoor/camping store across the way where we found 2 very good jackets, one for me and one for Jim. On the way home we stopped at Office Depot and I got some bubble wrap and packing tape for my pottery packing. The very friendly sales clerk spoke very little English and she didn’t understand my attempts to explain bubble wrap, but I was able to find it, came back to pay and on my way out she said very slowly “Good afternoon” with a big grin, very proud of herself. :-)

We got back to the campground around 3:00, had a quick lunch of tomato soup that tasted so good on a rainy day! Jim left to do some more errands (we had forgotten to buy lemons) including checking out some other campgrounds that he and Nancy may move to once I leave. Nancy and I read a bit, napped.

Using the Romaska baking tool that Nancy and Jim got in London some time ago, I was able to bake a pretty decent lemon/rosemary pound cake, which we had with strawberries and mint, with double cream – which we tried to make into whipped cream, but it didn’t work. Needless to say it didn’t matter because it tasted amazing. We just did a quick omelet and green salad for dinner.