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I've missed a couple of days' blogging as the hotels we were in, although lovely places, didn't have enough WiFi signal to be able to upload content.
We've had a few days here in the Dordogne, named after its lazy, meandering river, and famous for its large British ex-pat communities. I can see why they're here; the countryside is rolling, lush farmland, rather like the West Country in appearance, but the climate is much better, enabling outdoor swimming pools to be used. Every second farm has cute pictures of goats and/or geese, and menus feature goat cheeses, foie gras and gesieurs (translates as gizzards, or crops, of birds). We've eaten gesieurs before, only finding out what they were after the meal, and they are indeed tender & tasty. The French are obviously used to squeamish English though, as my gesieurs de canard last night were chunks of meat, and the chef was very surprised when I asked where my gizzards were.
The downside of this beautiful part of the world is the amount of grass. The roadsides are lined with a few metres of waist high grass waving their seedheads in the breeze, and our hotel last night was in the middle of acres of it with a forest outside our room, which was boiling hot but we didn't dare open the window as I was sneezing my head off inside even after overdosing on cetirizine. Tonight we've chosen an ancient hotel on the bank of the river in the medieval town of Sarlat, we're in the rafters with birds perching on the windowsill, we can hear the traffic but I'm not sneezing! Hoorah!!
We've been to the cave paintings at Lascaux II, faithful reproductions in a concrete cave as the originals were being destroyed by the changes in humidity/CO2 levels resulting from visitors. We've visited the cave town at Le Rocque and the pilgrims' town of Rocamadour this morning. I'll upload photos now.
Tomorrow we will turn north west towards Angouleme and the chateaux of the Loire, and by this time next week we'll be back in Woodley unpacking the car. It doesn't feel like 3 months, and I was thinking about souvenirs. I've sent a few cards to Mum, and bought a couple of bits for my girls, but what do I have as MY souvenirs? Loads of photos, obviously, a couple of tops bought to cope with hot weather, but the best has to be my new filling. Yes, tooth filling, done in 15mins by a Spanish dentist, for €40. What a bargain!! For 2 years I've asked my dentist to smooth out this particular filling as strawberry pips get stuck in it, and she's always said it's fine. After dislocating my jaw while trying to remove a pip, I went to the nearest surgery. This dentist said she could see the problem, and sorted it out using white filling. I might become a dental tourist, let's hope they don't find out the fees dentists charge in Reading.
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Ros You finally got to try out the Spanish dentists! A visit has been on your list for a while. Lovely souvenir Mum!