Now we are getting the swing of this place... at sunrise (probably around 4am), the roosters start crowing, the dogs start barking, the proprieters, Tim and Pippa start doing the morning chores - a little sweeping, taking the pool blanket off, water the garden, feed the fish, etc... The Stantons sleep in until the breakfast supplies - nicely warm baguettes, croissants and eggs are delivered to our door at 8:30am... but today there were no eggs! It seems the hens were not agreeable today so Miles had to dash down the road to the yellow barn which of course was already open for some fresh eggs, some abricots (fresh-tasting like apricots used to taste) and cherises (the most enormous plump cherries I have ever seen).

A quick boiled egg, a croissant with some of Pippa's strawberry and kiwi jam, a coffee and the Stantons hit the road in their little renault, Miles behind the wheel, Kyra gripping the handle and occasionally mentioning we are a little too close... no doubt the French drive a little more aggressively and with few manners than we are used to, and it seems our sat nav has a life of its own, taking us on the smallest roads, with hair-pn bends through tiny villages - very picturesque, but rather lengthy...

Nimes is today's destination, a must-do for this area it seems. We were rather tentative having encountered the one-way system from the train a few days ago... and, yes, the sat nav AND the phone google map did find a different Avenue du Gard, than the real Gare du Nimes... but we did eventually find the parking station at the station. A walk to the arena and really a very informative audio tape around an amazingly restored Roman amphitheatre which had lived through the gladiators, and then a walled citadel and more recently a bull-fighting ring.

A small lunch again of baguette, some leftover sausages from last night's dinner, fromages at the arena and we were energised once again to get to the Maison de Carree which was a Roman collisseum-type structure with a 'corny' film on the history of Nimes.

Being hot (around 30 degrees) and all exhausted, even a glace did not revive us, we decided to ditch Avignon for the day and head back to the Mas.

Finishing off the game of Monopoly (with some fresh raspberries), Rory won (but did he cheat?!), Richard lost for the sake of being able to read the internet and catch up on Wimbledon, Claire and Mummy just lost..) we rested for a short while before thinking we needed to again fill our tummies.

We drove off to St Quentin au Poterie, a local town, which Kyra had found had a good review of a restaurant only to arrive (after great difficulty from the sat nav tools) to find it was in the OTHER St Quentin, about 400 miles north. Nonetheless we found a small restaurant called La Bouchee which was in a tiny pebbled square which was perfect. Another rather late evening before planning to be up early to get to the Uzes markets tomorrow (Wednesday).