Beynac III

Cunninghams arrived late last night. Seems they set their TomTom to a slightly different location as well, though their error was nowhere to the same degree as ours - only 5 or 6 kms or so AND it was made by the Helpful Harry at the car lease joint. The town we are staying in is called 'Beynac et Cazenac'. They went to the other one, Cazenac, which is just up the hill a titch. They got in at 10:45 pm and we talked till 1:00 pm. A great old catch-up.

[Now I have just re-read one of my postings about not receiving emails/comments. It does sound a little abrupt. It was added as an afterthought following one of my more lengthy submissions. The only motivation was to find out who is 'on air' - who is listening. Just curious, that's all. So I hope I haven't offended anyone, especially my regular commentators. Sorry if I sounded cross. The only person I ever set out to offend is John Ford. I certainly am not. In fact, I am rather enjoying the writing.]

Meanwhile, back to the story ...

Gloomy weather these last couple of days. This only adds to the wonderful atmosphere of the region, however. Richard, Coeur de Leon - Richard I(The Lionheart - probs because he had the heart of a lion, or at least SEEMED to have) of England (you know the chap) occupied these here parts all those centuries ago. Gallooping across the countryside, he completed many a maraudering expedition, bashing up the French before heading off on a Crusade to the Holy Land. Old Richard did not spend much, if any, of his life in England and only spoke French - some King!

Apparently, Britain controlled lots of France at this time and this region contained the border betwen the two countries. The English occupied the chateau (castle) we can see out of our window (up the valley) and the French occupied the one above our joint. There was never any direct conflict between the two, apparently, but I bet there was some pretty intense glowering, just the same. Just like you expect to see Noddy and Bigears stick their heads out of the windows from houses in Dinner Plain and wave greetings, so here you expect, at any moment of the day, a gallant knight to clip up to one of these-here castles and sing out, "Rapunsel, Rapunsel, let down your hair". But I suppose such knight would be well-advised not to, as there is far too much traffic zinging past along the road below linking Bordeaux with our closest town, Salat. His voice just would not carry.