Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!
So we woke to a small leak in the loo from the roof which we mopped up and decided to drive to get some breakfast. When we moved Vincent the small leak turned into a deluge as water which had obviously formed a puddle on the roof cascaded down the walls! After mopping this up, with our abundance of microfibre towels, we left La Chaussee-sur-Meine, picked up some croissants and found a great place to park near a river at Chepny.
We then realised that a water beaker had spilt on the bed and soaked through the blanket, duvet, sheet and mattress. We were running out of microfibre towels but we managed to dry the bedding the best we could and had a lovely walk along the canal with the dogs before enjoying our breakfast. Mike called the UK and booked Vincent in for leakage repair and we then drove to Eperney with Vincent looking like a laundry. We found the city quite disappointing maybe because we could not explore the 68 miles of underground caves in which the champagne is stored. However the route to Eperney through the pretty villages and vineyards was really nice.
From Eperney we decided to drive north so that we were near the village at which we had booked the dogs in for their vets appointment at 11am the next day. All dogs returning to the uk have to have a worming tablet within 1-5 days of the return journey and this recorded in their passport by a qualified vet.
After rejecting two campsites, definitely geting fussier, we parked at an aire in Coucy Le Chateau.
It was a nice site under the old castle in the background, a pretty dog walk round a lake nearby and had water and electric hook up. Mike paid for the hook up which included 10 mins of water. Although he did not have the the right hose fitting he decided to fill Vincent with water. He managed to work out a way to do this but only by holding the hose to the outlet and while it only took 5 mins he got soaked and when the van was full the water continued to pour out! Our fellow campers came to smirk and offer useful advise like the water comes out for 10 minutes!
After a decent nights sleep we decided that we would try and shower in Vincent as we had so much water - thought we would stick to the water theme. The shower worked and we were both impressed - definitely better than some of the campsite showers. Whilst we were having breakfast we watched the children from the secondary school next door do a litter picking round. We have actually been very impressed with the aires - on the whole motorhomers bin their litter or take it home.
We arrived in Anizy-le-Chateau for the 11am vets appointment. I had managed to make an appointment with the receptionist for 'Onze heures le Jeudi'. Luckily the vet spoke more English and both the dogs passed their health check and were given their wormer and had their passports stamped. This cost us about €27 which was very good value for two dogs.
We then decided to have a decent drive north and stay two nights in Amiens. We passed a significant number of war cemeteries on the way and I am sure we will learn more about this area tomorrow as the campsite is very close to the Somme river.
