Wednesday 30th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - finally, and at long last, fixed the car!

Hot and sticky. We waited for Citroën to ring to say the parts had arrived. The young lad rang, neither of us could follow his French, but it appeared the new silent blocks had arrived. We went to fetch them. 166€! Even worse! Filled the ZX’s tank at Géant, at least that had gone down a bit more, 1,34.9€/litre (1,38.9€ last time) back home for midday. After lunch Mike set to work on the car and replaced the silent blocks. He finished just after 4.00 p.m. knackered due to having to work in direct full sunshine. He had a wash and went for a lie down. Later we went out for a ride in the car to test it. Hooray! No more banging from the rear as we went over bumps! Took the road to Flamerens, through the lovely low hills to Sisterns and on into Caudecost, then back through Sauveterre and St Sixte (the end of the scenic route to Agen) to the boat in the dusk. Too hot and tired so we watched a film we recorded earlier, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, a modernised dramatisation of H.G.Welles’ story. Hotter and hotter. The cabin didn’t seem to cool down much after dark, even with leaving the side doors wide open (and mossie net in place). I lay in bed and sweat so much my head felt like I’d dunked it in a bowl of warm water! I migrated to the side bunk, switched the fan on for half an hour until I’d cooled down, and even then spent a restless night. Mike got up several times, he said he could hear the workmen talking who were setting up the sound and lighting system for the pageant, plus they had several large spotlights on, which he could see even though we’d got the reflective heat shields in both bedroom windows.