Whether tiredness or relief, neither of us wakes early today and when we do the sun is streaming through the curtains. A quick check shows the battery has held its charge overnight so we'll cross our fingers and trust it will start on Sunday morning. Within an hour Nick has two calls from the breakdown insurance asking how well they had handled our case. They were politely advised that if they spent more time ringing back people stuck in a broken down motorhom...

Our 6 hours of electricity ran out at 23:00 last night so at 07:30 Ali sticks another jeton in the pillar and we keep everything on mains voltage. 11:00 we decide to try the starter pack. The volts rise gradually to 11.2 but then drop to 11. Nick turns the key. Click-click-click nothing. The couple from the French moho beside us come over, see the problem and next minute he's positioning his van to give us a jump start. Leads on, his motor running, volts ri...

Darkness stays later by the day and we don't stir until after 08:30 We plan on driving to Josselin this afternoon and visit the town tomorrow. After using the service point we drive up to the supermarket. An hour later we are ready to leave but Mary*Lou is as dead as a dodo, even the dashboard lights don't glimmer. We try the jump start pack but it's about the only thing that didn't get charged yesterday. Nothing for it but call the breakdown services. Call...

The travellers have left before we are up. There isn't a scrap of litter or any sign they were here. If only our so-called travellers at home behaved this way. We say our goodbyes with Chris and Paul and leave together. Less than a mile we reach a roundabout and go our separate ways. Over the last few days we've parked in lots of shade and charged the wheelchair batteries twice, with the result that the leisure battery needs a good charge itself. We know th...

As dawn breaks we hear cars pulling in all around us, doors and boots banging and bits of chatter; the pickers arriving to start their work. Once we are up we can see them bobbing up and down between the rows of vines. Some cut the grapes and place them in buckets, others walk to and fro with tapered plastic barrels on their back into which the buckets are emptied. When the backpacks are full they are tipped into trailers which are drawn by little tractors up ...