Anybody who knows Spain (Spaniards say) knows that things shut down for hours at lunchtime but maybe they (Spaniards on holiday say) don’t know that in rural France the same system prevails, only it happens two hours earlier. So on Monday we set off for Aubusson with warnings from me that if the supermarket petrol station at Gouzon didn’t have a card operated pump there might be nothing to do but have a forced one hour lunch stop 15 minutes after starting out.

It does have a card operated pump so no problem, except the pump refused Diego’s Visa card which he maintained he had used successfully throughout the wide, wide world without incident until arriving in France. (The day before a supermarket had obliged him to pay cash).

Eduardo’s card was received with the same disdain so we had to fill the two motors with my humble but FRENCH bank card. It’s irritating little things like that that make foreign travel such fun isn’t it? I’ve since remembered getting hot under the collar at not being able to recharge a Spanish mobile phone with my otherwise universally accepted HBOS Visa and must remember to point this out to Diego.

We arrived in Aubusson well after lunch-time (French lunch-time that is) and were peckish. We weren’t foolish enough to look for lunch but throughout the length of the high street only three sandwiches were available. For a party of seven without JC on hand this seemed insufficient. Some establishments were closed for the day. They often are on Mondays. Some were closed for their holidays. Well why not? Just because I run a café or a restaurant doesn’t mean I can’t take my holidays in August just like everyone else. Tourists? Here? Hungry? Tant pis.

Saved by a bakery where we sat down to quiches of various sorts, spicy sausage bridies, all washed down with beer and followed by ice-cream cones in exotic flavours and coffee served with smiles all round. It’s heart-warming little things like that that make foreign travel such fun isn’t it?

The tapestry museum would have been an anti climax after that, had I gone in, but I’ve seen it several times before. Others were not drawn to the product of the loom either. Here they are. The one flat on his back with the strain of being on holiday in France is Diego.

He perked up later and successfully used his card to buy provisions in a Champion supermarket and transformed those provisions into a champion dinner. I especially enjoyed something he did with cauliflower and vinegar. There must have been something else in it don’t you think?