Bonjour from us!

    After a beautiful time in Ciotat we need to start heading further north. We stumble upon an aire with wonderful facilities in Saint Paul-Lez-Durance, and discover we have it all to ourselves! The town square is quaint, with some attempt to encourage people to explore the vicinity by offering maps and trails, but it’s a little eerie as there is not a soul to be seen! Where are all the people and how do they survive when nothing is open? After a cool off in the water splash park, we escape and make it to Quinson, ready to brave Verdon Gorge the following day!

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    I’m still in my pajamas I’m now sat here in my Smalls in a t-shirt trying to hang on to the last strips of dignity that I have is’s no sign of any excrement splashed around the St several walks of Shame today hi I’m Daz and she’s B and we’re

    On a 12we road trip round France with our boys and our Greyhound Sammy join us as we explore the history Beauty and fun we can squeeze in while getting to grips with the challenges of working and home educating on the Road as a family in France living a life less ordinary as we

    Escape in the [Laughter] Moto it’s another beautiful morning in siota Here I Am by a newly empti bin something I noticed that they do very efficiently Sammy’s desperate for a walk this morning and everyone’s desperate to go out for a swim this Sunday morning

    Cuz he went out for a a dusk swim last night which was really lovely the boys saw aaz amazing fish and it was really nice to access the water they couldn’t quite do the way they wanted to at the colan yesterday Indie looked them up last night there were

    Some hilarious names um that was called the mave Stinger or the purple Stinger the purple people eater but yes not dangerous just leaves you with uncomfortable sting which they exper all experienced apart from Phoenix yesterday we looked at the kind of jelly map of the colons yesterday and that area the

    Sea attat colon did have a red circle around it to say there are a lot in the water and you know they’re reproducing all the time and uh Indie said when he was helping collect them um whereas in the past he would have been absolutely maddened that they were being

    Potentially killed he can see that it’s now part of an ecosystem and he said he could immediately see sandflies and other creatures starting to eat them um and so and he said that they’re reproducing on the time it’s quite a sensible grownup way of looking at it

    But yeah we love this walk on seat in the morning and they’re all going to be going swimming there we go everyone having their morning constitutional walk 9:00 a.m. walk sounds like they’ve got it just right I’m still in my pajamas don’t think anyone cares wow some sort of resting match

    Going on in town today looks like there’s a lot of competitors either that or a lot of people coming to watch but there’s about five or six different belts now my boys were WWE fans or the two older ones were for many many years so it just peaked my interest that

    There’s some real efficiency in keeping this place absolutely spotlessly clean more than I’ve seen in any other town or city so far there seems to be a big respect for the area as well I’ve seen a couple of couples litter picking too and uh the toilets like I said you always

    Get a bit worried about Beach toilets and the ones in Mars I didn’t dare use um when I looked inside but these ones absolutely lovely just seen somebody being taken down to the beach in these wonderful buoyant trolleys so I presume if you are struggling to walk then you can still

    Experience the seea in these bug buggies I’ll see if I can get one here you go Sam’s not allowed on the beach I’ll try and CCH from shot away look at that so brilliant so a wheelchair with buy a there’s another one now a new habit Sammy has developed um that Daryl

    Experienced last night at about 1:00 a.m. is switching on the hazard lights um with his nose he’s not doing it on purpose we all went out for a little dusk swim yesterday and came back to our van or our motor home flushing lucky it’s not making a noise

    At that same time but darl noticed it from the metal clicking sound at 1:00 a.m. so that’s the second time in 24 hours I wonder if he’s just discovered that something he can do that has a nice clicking effect so a bit nervous dropping him back now for a 45 minute

    Swim let’s hope he doesn’t put the hazards on again Oh check out this he really didn’t want to do this um because he you know kind of said but cheese makes it I just saw him putting fresh garlic oil on it fresh bazzel and I’m so happy because that’s like the best pieza we’ve had there’s no

    Tomato pure on it no it’s just fresh tomatoes s’s puree look at us what we just saw him rolling the pizza by hand I don’t that and this looks proper hav cooked scorched at the edge cooked in next to No Time ready for yours I mean I don’t

    Think you’re going to fit that all in to be honest the is really anyway B Appetit so Sunday afternoon’s High Jinx is going out on the paddle board just like they did yesterday but this time going into deeper waters to see if they can see any more interesting fish it is so unbearably hot Phoenix and I are staying back here in the mot home having been in

    The sea this morning uh but Daz has just done his daily workout pumping that up look at him ripped ripped apart well with only 3 weeks left before our Channel Crossing we had to cut short any more visits to towns and cities along the Mediterranean coast and start

    Heading north we found a park up an hour north which set us up perfectly for a trip to the ver and Gorge later that Week hello again while you join us having left aat uh the beautiful seafront town where we spent two days and caught quite a bit of sun drank quite a lot of salt uh you now join us at um our next stop ABS absolutely empty and where Services

    Here where be modeling St Paul St Paul later and it is a spanking brand new air as far as we can tell yeah we’ve got barely been used there’s no sign of any excrement splashed around the side and the water out genuinely looks like it’s got nowhere near the Poo trap yeah and

    There’s a little picnic bench over there and I think although I can hear the noise of the the toll road I think in the background we’ve got a massive man-made Canal one side of us and I think possibly a river the other side of us so some good walking territory for

    Sammy anyway uh it’s 1172 to stay here it’s € extra to use the waste but the 1172 includes electricity and it does say electricity and there was a dripping water tap in the image maybe maybe it’s just saying that’s the facilities are here but anyway you pay for the water and the

    Water even for the flush you got to pay for so if you got enough water on board you can empty your black waist here bit you know whatever so that’s it we’re going to use the electric try and do some editing and some catchup so we will

    Say good night and we will see you Tomorrow D yeah it was on the more expensive side but to have electricity is a godsend for Daz at the moment because he needs it for work and solar even though we’ve got sunny days every single day it gets caned by big fat laptops right now Sammy needs a walk

    Should we go Sam come on good morning from a sleepy St Paul Les now this town seems to be a town on two sides of quite a busy road however they really are making themselves appeal to visitors now there is a canal right next to us which appears to be part of

    The hydro electric point because there are lots of signs from the electricity company saying you cannot go in the water you cannot go in the water so we presume they’re making electricity at some point down the canal I had to wander around it last night for quite a

    Long time I kept catching sight of the signs saying s deit so I decided to follow the footsteps and it took me around parts of the town which is a little bit ramshackle but it’s got some beautiful parts to it as well and then

    It took me on the other side of the road and then it took me over to the allotments and it took me over to their large Leisure play area which included a little springy splash park so once the boys have caught up a bit on on the Diaries this morning we’re going to

    Follow those footsteps again but something else I’ve noticed in lots of the park areas they’ve got these interesting red constructions with glowing lights on the side and I’ve just had a look at them and I couldn’t work out what it did I was wondering whether it was something

    To do with um putting out your cigarettes or something but looking this morning says cooks with an X so I’m guessing there’s some sort of funky barbecue the French can do it well can’t they not sure whether this would ever work in our country I wonder if that’s

    Why these haven’t been rolled out everywhere does appear to be a bit of a ghost town though I walked around town last night and I was thinking oh super quiet it’s because it’s a Sunday completely understand tomorrow there’ll be a bit of Life they was going use the local

    Supermarket it’s uh gone past 9 a.m. on a Monday and it’s much the same apart from a few mad fast drivers and I’ve just been sent to the supermarket with orders for jam and bread and orange juice and I’ve checked it out and it’s closed on a

    Monday this guy appears in every village in France absolutely everything closed I’ve just picked up a discover some Paul leaflet outside the Marie’s office which looks fantastic but I can’t discover any shops open they’re all closed all closed the whole row of shops the supermarket opens on Tuesday there’s no b

    Longerie p ton as always and of course trying to be organized wanting to deliver a parcel to my friend and the post office was open this morning when I went past it with the dog and we’ve come out lunchtime and it’s closed and it’s only open for 2

    Hours every morning it’s the only thing that is open in this town to be be absolutely honest so I’ve come here at 1:00 p.m. I can’t post my letter because that closed at 11:00 I should have checked that really this morning this is reopening in September so I think what I’m

    Sensing is that they all close for the summer maybe apart from the vival the vival actually has a library where you can take books and this s sandery which would have drinks says clothes Monday 14th of August family problem whoa there’s a shoe for scale that is

    Enormous hey Sam Sam in the background there well after a little bit of Googling we found out that it was the mammoth wasp which will won’t be established in England because its prey doesn’t live in Britain and its prey is the rhinoceros beetle so it can be found

    In Mediterranean climates such as this one and it lives in Woodland uh like where we are staying today because there are would be lots of rotting Tree Trunks and things which is where a rhinoceros beetle will tend to live so I’m kind of excited about seeing a rhinoceros beetle

    Because those are the ones with a great big kind of horn on the front I believe hence the name rhinoceros but the females are bigger than the males the females can be as long as 4.5 cm and uh there’s the canal and we’re crossing over to get to the splash area there we

    Go we’re continuing our visit continuing our Pathway to the park stay in the Shady so that’s going into the canal there we go in the middle of a ghost town where nothing is open I’ve been seeing barely any people I started to get really worri because this was

    Such a Barren dry hot walk to get here across the road and it felt far further than it felt last night and I was thinking oh maybe the water was only on because there was a scout group there but no it’s almost like an oasis in the middle of a desert

    A beautiful Char’s play park with Water don’t shoot her shoot ET Look how good’s the eye it’s a reverse no get out sorry cuz I’m so scared of damaging your precious precious vehicle stamp is a bit precious we’ like your partner yes it’s like my wife have you met my wife all right here we go no I haven’t

    Uh sort is this definitely your final exit I think it’s saying it’s making me go right over there yes it is and then we’re just going to buy another ticket uh to sort out water and waste over there and that’s before we leave this ghost town forever or this burnt out scub it’s

    Weird the place we’re in feels like a sort of desert with nobody interested in being here be’s been to local park this morning and all the shops are closed and there’s nobody about so it’s a weird old place but really nice facilities what would you say on the matter darling it’s

    A peculiar one I went there last night and followed their Route Around The Village the Marie has produced like a little map of places to visit the but nothing is open the only thing that was open for 2 hours this morning was the post office which I presume people the

    Residents go help me and put it in the post box tell you what it reminding me of the league of gentlemen what’s that place called now Roy and VY Roy and VY like everyone wants to leave but you can never leave the town There’s no way of

    Leaving well here is the shinest world disposal and waste disposal you ever did see only a tiny hint of excrement and look super shiny tat well we’ve just been to carful on always quinson topped up on food topped up on SB and be so it’s a great

    Opportunity to wash all of our clothes because washing machines sometimes are few in far between unfortunately due to lack of my clothes I’m now sat here in my Smalls and a t-shirt trying to hang on to the last strips of dignity that I have and um be’s facing a similar

    Challenge I’m in um a rejected t-shirt of my sons he probably paid about 30 quid for this but then he just rejects it cuz he’s got all the money in the world uh so I found it in the cupboard but thinking it would be like super long

    But it’s not uh so um so you nearly went out so I went out just in this wo uh but I’ve just found these Speedo shorts to wear what do you think I think it’s a great look for doing the washing so here we go two giant bags of uh

    Washing and uh it’s a two star lavy apparently which means it probably leaves a closed dir here put them in nice we should just dunk them in the river so it doesn’t look as bad as it suggests on the internet two stars but what’s most inconvenient is the fact that it is cash

    Only well there go Wacky Races and I’ve got to go and find some cash to wash our clothes it comes to something when you got to take money from you’re 11year old don’t worry he gets it all back and he gets it all back on my card so I can

    Spend it wherever he needs it well it’s all fairly straightforward I’ve chosen machine number five I put my money in the top it gave me my chains we got machine of lava so washing machine sesar so drying €2 fairly big machines as well but for some reason it seems to be going

    In one hell of a spin mode for right at the beginning of a cycle okay time to get the darks on 14 kilos 8 okay machine number three that’s my choice R money €20 this time oh okay doesn’t like C up 20b note okay it lights up the second time let’s

    See what comes out as change lot of change uhhuh and it started so with these ones you got to make sure you got it on the right cycle first no options it’s 40° let’s check we got some foam going on in this one yeah the reviews were saying

    The clothes came out dirtier when they went in but I think with a nice washing tablet inside my white should stay white and my darks will hopefully be deliciously clean so Daz is in the habit of finding female sunglasses so he found one pair a few uh probably about a month

    And a half ago actually and Googled them and they turned out to be how much dear um a pair of guest uh branded glasses are about 60 yeah so I don’t know what you’re going to do with those maybe you can wear them yourself give them to

    Sammy yeah they were sort of wedged into some grass like they’re you know just some sort of murder scene I like a magpie and saw something shiny and the boys and I did the same thing on the paddle board yesterday yeah but this one I actually really I didn’t like the

    Guest ones I don’t like Jazzy things these are sort of nice and plain and my other pair of sunglasses are from like tie flying part and you Sammy was that burp from flying tiger and they’re not very fancy but these ones have kind of like a metal lining looks like a girl

    That’s probably got a bit of taste and where did you find them daddy um on the half buried in the sand at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea by uh laat lucky me so I’m going to wear them it’s treasure treasure very very treasure quite literally so there you go there are my

    Glasses from the Bottom of the Sea U all I think is that they uh they were litter I feel sorry for the person that lost them I’m very grateful that I can use them again for them not children’s glasses are they well I’m an eternal child underneath the wrinkles so it’s

    Been a bit of a chore day today and it’s felt hotter than it’s ever felt since we’ve been away I don’t know whether it’s just because of the lack of wind or Breeze but yeah I feel like I’ve got sweat drips hanging off my sweat drips a

    La Dr is not the place to hang around when it’s this kind of temperature and this is this is not a good look either yeah I had to go back into the supermarket and ask for an item that I think we bought but we obviously didn’t

    Pick up in the men’s swim shops and the Tom and Jerry t-shirt several walks of Shame Today Now I feel like I could be in America it’s all a bit Baron a bit wildy coyote it is a bit wiy coyote isn’t it I’m expecting to see Road Runner peeping around the Corner de that was our road sadly hope we can find an alternative go on yeah well sadly I’m going and turn around um our truck sat now doesn’t seem to want to come on again at the moment so we are entirely at the mercy of Google

    Maps s us down this road which gets tinier and tinier well it was all going a bit too smoothly wasn’t it yeah just approaching quinson which is hopefully going to be our bed for the night and hopefully it’s going to park us right next to the Lac

    Where we are hiring a kayak tomorrow and we’re going to be going uh on a kayak and on DA’s Santa Pall that’s what I was trying to say but we are hoping cuz we’ve turned up here really late cuz we’ve had a wash day and we’ve had a

    General maintenance day and a shopping day as well we have to buy all our shopping yeah sometimes you do have to just do chores otherwise you’ll be living on air but yeah we’re hoping we know we’ve turned up late there’s going to be space in the air but yeah quinson seems very very

    Pretty now this wasn’t on our agenda we were going to two other Villages but watched the Gordon Verge camper Vibe episode and they suggested quinson so we’ve decided to give it a go because their air looked absolutely stoning and free which this is what makes me think it won’t be

    Empty oh gosh please fingers crossed fingers crossed golly it’s not looking good you reckon no it’s a bit snug Bab Tre there bit snug more really deserve yeah someone with a massive warning oh please let there be a space down the end you have a giraffe aren’t you your

    Destination is on the it’s not looking good it’s not looking good is it oh Poo try very last space I mean it’s it’s contentious you know we’re a bit stuck out but who cares high five babe ch’s done by the lake jobs are good in right we that’s the biggest of the

    Kids in the van have some time to himself on his Xbox and Sammy the other two boys and be we’re all taking the 2minute walk supposedly down to the Riverside here where the electric boats are which we all booked out tomorrow be’s trying to Trend set this uh or set

    A trend for mixed clothing mixed eras um yes I feel like tomorrow before we pick up the Kay which we booked but haven’t paid for we should try sweet talking the electric boat owner well we’ve just spotted this fell hanging about above the car park and he’s ever

    So interested in Sammy old sand dog over there very Stu you ask can’t be a lot to eat up there to be honest is that that sounds like a negative thing don’t worry we’re going oh look there’s a picture of me and B hanging out so this goat is terribly interested

    In Sammy and I’m wondering whether it thinks that Sammy is a threat maybe possibly a wolf uh we did a mystery science lesson once which is an online science class all about how mountain goats can live quite happily in the mountains because they can escape their prey up in the mountains because they

    Can Vault quite High or as I believe wolves can’t um so they’re quite safe up there but I’m wondering whether Sammy looks like a black wolf which is why the goat looked quite terrified still watching Sammy are he’s spot Sammy spoted in now what do you think of that

    Sam well that was about a 10 or 15 minute walk from the campsite doesn’t actually take that long it’s just cuz we got kids and dogs with us however it was well worth it now we’re on a foot Bridge across the river that has virtually no path however the view behind us

    Is breatht and that’s where we’re going Tomorrow well I hope you enjoyed that little slice of France please say hello with a like or a comment and until our next Escape thanks for watching

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