5 minutes out from our successful overnight at Montgiroux, which we’ve now made an official Park4night stop, I had a surprise for Sophie.

It would have been rude to have driven past Dick & Angel Strawbridge’s Chateau de la Motte Husson, so we pulled up where their drive meets the main road and took a few snaps. After clocking some of the features that we’d seen on TV, we waved and were back on our journey.

Our next stop was a coffee break at Les Perles, near to Averton. We’ve overnighted here twice in the past, and the last time was with Kenny & Tanya, where I recall we were barbecuing sausages. En route it had been pretty much non-stop rain, but the sun came out when we arrived and stayed out for most of the day. We made our usual circumnavigation of the lake and then decided to have a simple lunch.

On from here we fooled SatNav lady into taking the backroads in a general Alencon direction, and we found some excellent scenery and villages we’d managed to miss previously.