Camping or Glamping?

When we lived in Australia, camping was hard work, tents, perishibles in an esky, large water containers, no electricty, flies, large spiders.   And now we are camping in the south of France, with a large touring caravan (kept in storage here), an excellent water supply, electricity, comfortable chairs, two fridges, microwave, an oven, and best of all a coffee machine, with accompanying electric milk foamer.  This is not camping, this is glamping.   Glamerous camping.   And we love it.

After a long and brisk walk, breakfast, and quite a few laps of the pool, it is time to do a little housework.  Not much, just to keep the place looking decent.   At the moment, as we are on our own, we are finished all of this by 9.40 a.m.    So time for coffee!   And Walter looking very relaxed in this photograph as he settles down for his first coffee of the day.   The most important one.

And what is this on our oven?    A little bit of local wildlife!    Jeff, the lizard would like this grasshopper, although I think it could be larger than Jeff.

A game of rounders?  Or a relay race?  Or maybe dribbling a football?   No we are not bored yet.    These markers were purchased in Decathlon, and we use them to cover the pegs for the annex.    No tripping over tent pegs anymore.   

So the morning progresses, with some reading, catching up on the news on the internet, or maybe writing a blog or two.   Then it is lunchtime, usually in the campsite, baguette with ham and cheese, followed by a beautiful ripe peach or nectarine.    We have only been out to lunch once so far.   Not like us at all.   And only water for lunch too.   We are looking after our health.

  Well, the afternoon is spent snoozing, reading and jumping into the swimming pool for a swim.   My view of the campsite from my chair.    There was a photograph of me, in my bathers, relaxing on the chair, but I deleted it, due to it being most unattractive.

 Sometimes late in the afternoon, we go to Le Lavandou for a walk along the beach front, or visit the shops, and have an icecream.   No special hurry, or purpose in our wanderings here.  But I must go for a swim in the sea though.   It looks very tempting.

Then it is 'drinkies' time, either on our own, or with other campers.   Apertif before dinner.   We do try to keep the number of drinks down to one or two.   Looking after our health again.    Today we went into Le Lavandou to our favourite cafe, Le Centre, where we had our first glasses of beer since arriving here.   Mine was a shandy, I would like to add.   We sat and watched the passing parade of tourists.   Very pleasant.

 Sunset!   Such a beautiful time of the day.  The surrounding woodland looks magnificent in the late glow of the sun as it sinks behind the hills.  Mind you this beautiful scene is a little marred by the mosquitoes who decide it is time to come out, and annoy us.

 And one night we were invited to have dinner at Helen, Abdul and Jasmine's camping site.   Abdul cooked the most delicious meal, marinated chicken on skewers, with a salad made of potatoes, green beans, eggs and lettuce.   Lots of cumin used in the meal.   We finished it off with a strawberry tart.   It was a fantastic evening, but perhaps we won't mention the number of bottles of wine consumed, between the four of us.  

Camping Australia was never like this!   Well we did have lots of wine though, which always tasted great, when camping out under the stars, amongst the bush.