Wednesday 2nd July 2008 abv Vic C. du Midi

Overcast and cooler, at last! We took Bill with us to Labège 2 to get some groceries. We went to find the SFR shop to sort out our ‘phone and said we’d meet Bill back by the seats at the entrance. The SFR shop was very busy. Young Audrey was very sympathetic, she 'phoned and it turned out that a piece of paper was missing, a proof of domicile in the UK! We had had that subscription with SFR for two years and yesterday they decided that their records weren’t complete and without any warning or explanation severed our telephone connection. We had taken our most recent bill for the Internet connection from SFR – no problems with that! It was not an acceptable proof of domicile! She took a copy of Mike’s carte gris (car logbook), but there was no address (it’s French and coupled to the Livret de circulation) on it. After two ‘phone calls and several faxes she said service would be restored within 48 hours. Bill was on his way to the seats in the exit having already bought his groceries - it had taken us over an hour to sort out our ‘phone. We said we’d be as quick as possible and asked if he wanted to put his stuff in the car, but he said no he’d rather sit and wait for us in the cool air-conditioned mall. That branch of Carrefour was certainly much larger than the one at Agen Sud, so we had trouble finding things. I was a bit annoyed to find no potatoes other than a few loose ones, same for onions. Bill had stocked up on heavies -  beer, milk and wine. Back to the boat for a late lunch. Mike checked the boat batteries and found a corroded connection meant only half the batteries were connected to the system. He fixed that and we had lunch. Mike asked the lock keeper at Vic if there was a déchetterrie (rubbish disposal and recycling centre) local to the boat. He and Bill took the empty paint tins that the VNF refused to let us put in their bins – they said take them home with you – we were home! The people in charge of the déchetterrie wanted our postcode or where we came from, so Mike gave them the postcode for Valence.