Chilling Out & St. Germain du Bois 27/28th September 2010

Monday
We had a relaxing day today, with breakfast on board, a nice lunch of egg mayonnaise and chicken salad with some lovely French bread, followed by a walk to Carrefour Supermarket for some food and wine for the rest of the week. Carrefour is huge selling everything but the kitchen sink! They are selling mountain bikes for 89 euros until tomorrow which is a great bargain and we may buy one or two of them tomorrow to replace the stolen one. The police paid us a visit this afternoon to have a look at our smashed door and take some notes about the theft. We have to go down tomorrow afternoon to see them to sign some paperwork, and we will hold off buying new bikes until we see what they have in the lost and found – well you never know!
After a lovely dinner on board of Cajun spiced salmon fillets with prawn and vegetable couscous and our favourite dessert of Ile Flotantes, we relaxed listening to the radio with our books.
The weather today has been a bit colder with some light rain throughout the day. Our trusty little blow heater kept Ginger Grouse II like a portable sauna!
Tuesday
We hired a car today for a trip to La Chapelle St. Sauveur and St. Germain du Bois which is about 25 miles to the east of Chalon Sur Saone. It was very foggy in the morning, which is usual for September on the rivers in France, and then the fog burned off to reveal a lovely afternoon of sunshine. We had a super lunch in Hostelrie de Bressane which was only 14 euros per person. Starters of Snails in very garlicky butter were fab, mopped up with home made French bread, and then we had steak served with spinach, which was also very delicious, Jim finished with 3 cheeses and I had a lovely whipped marscapone/coffee dessert. Great value for money and the Restaurant was very full, which is always a good sign! St. Germain du Bois in particular was a very pretty little town.
We missed going to the police station this afternoon as we got carried away on our trip, so hopefully the French police will forgive us and we will see them early in the morning before heading off for some boating on the river, our first outing for Ginger Grouse II, weather permitting.
There seems to be a pattern emerging here......food....food.....food!