Mick was not feeling great this morning, so we swapped our planned activity for today, a fancy lunch in Seillans, with fueling the car and grocery shopping. Sounds easy and a bit mundane, but have you ever tried to buy fuel in a French petrol station before? I’m sure many of you have. We have too. But each “first time” has its own nuances.

The day started very differently – I took the boy dog for a walk, on his lead, on my own. That went very well and I’m pretty sure I met the wife of the bike rider who was nipped two days earlier. I can’t be 100% certain, as my French is only so so. Anyway, we exchanged pleasantries and she did say the name of the dog followed by … “il est compliqué”, so I knew she knew him. My dog eventually got sick of us chatting, growled at her two off-the-lead dogs, and that was the end of that!

Meanwhile, Mick was holding the fort with the two female dogs. One wasn’t too bothered about missing her walk, but the little one cried. She then followed us everywhere around the house most of the day in case we would take her for her walk. Poor thing.

We were told the best place to buy fuel was at the large supermarket, E. Leclerc, just outside Fayence about an 11km drive from where we’re staying.

I pulled over to take this shot of Fayence. This view is typical of the many villages around here. They are perched high on the hills, and all the houses appear the same colours as these ones, and often the main difference between the villages is the unique church spire that sticks out higher than anything else.

We found the service station pretty easily, but our first attempt was a big “F” for fail. We’d lined up on the side where you used only your credit card and we wanted to use the cashier – caisse (checkout), as shown by my arrow.

So, I reversed and lined up on the left of the caisse.

There was a lady filling her car so I asked her (in French of course) if I could watch how she did it as this was our first time. She was happy for us to do so, but it was all over way too quickly as she put only €10 in her little car. At €1.59/litre I can understand why (that is just over $2.50/L in Aussie$).

It looked easy, so I drove our car forward. Mick repeated the steps the lady demonstrated.

And, nothing!!

After a few more attempts it worked. We realised we had to wait for the little lady to drive to the caisse and pay her €10 before the pump would restart for us.

Anyway, it all ended well. The car is full again. We’ve done 450km since we hired it, well under the maximum we’re allowed to use. It averaged 6.4K/100Km which is pretty good.

After we had mastered that challenge we headed into the supermarket. Mick bought two things he was after.

He will make a rabbit casserole and then a pie.

Duck breasts for dinner tonight though, as the rabbit is going to take some preparation.

We needed a swim during the afternoon though as it was the hottest day so far at 37°C.

Hopefully Mick is feeling his old self tomorrow so we can enjoy lunch at the Michelin starred restaurant in Seillans.

Dinner was delicious.