Friday 13th

A few kilometres short of Clermont-Ferrand we crossed the 45° parallel,  the invisible line deemed to divide the south of France from the rest of it. The architecture and landscape changed, happily the weather didn't, clear blue skies and sunny days in the mid twenties forecast for the next few days.

We've used the free aire at Saint Pourçain. sur Sioule a lot;  it's a conveniently located stop-off on the way south or north and is invariably busy no matter what time of year you turn up. Luckily the place is huge with room for well over 50 vehicles. 

It's attractively situated too, with pitches stretching along the wooded banks of the Allier. The town is attractive too, but we didn't feel like taking the 10 minute walk into the centre, contenting ourselves with a stoll along the river-side path, stopping here and there to photograph the spectacular autumn colours. 

It's definitely more obviously 'fall' here compared to where we have just been.

Gill was rewarded with a glimpse of a kingfisher, I missed it.

We are not feeling too perky. While we were in Millau Gill developed a sore throat, I must have caught her bug, because now I am coughing and sneezing and have a sore chest. Time to doze-up on paracetamol, I reckoned..

 

We stuck to our plan and headed north to Sully-sur-Loire to stay for a couple of days at the campsite. I felt quite fluey and driving became a bit of a chore, luckily the roads were empty, so it was easy enough.

We weren't up to sightseeing so we stayed in the van, I blitzed the blog which was a week or two out of date, Gill alternated between reading Simon Reeves' memoir and Andrea Camilleri's final 'Inspector Montalbano' story. The latter seemed quite remarkable. She kept passing her phone across to me so I could read bits of it. Unlike Gill,  I have not read any of the books, but have always enjoyed the TV adaptation and it's clear even there that the Montalbano series has a literary ambitions beyond the scope of the average whodunnit.

In this regard the final book excels itself. In a nod toward Sicily's most famous literary figure, Pirandello, the last Montalbano story ends in a remarkable metafictional tussle between the writer, Camilleri, Montelbano on the page and the TV version of the fictional inspector. In the last scene the literary inspector, frustrated by the actions of both his writer and the activities of his TV doppelganger decides to rub himself our, destroying himself word by word with an eraser. Very cool!  It Would never happen to Morse!

I was cleaning my teeth in the bathroom when Gill shouted something I didn't quite catch. Poking my head around the door I found her holding a small plastic stick with two red stripes on it. She'd decided to take a COVID test and sadly it came out positive.

I don't know why I bothered, it was obvious I had succumbed too, but the following day I did, and of course it was positive.

It explained why our 'colds' were persistent and not getting any better. This being said although the bug is unpleasant it clearly is less virulent than the first time we caught it in Portugal in 2021. I feel ill, but I don't feel 'scarily unwell'. We reckon Gill must have caught the virus over a week ago while we were in Meze, possibly at the market or in a supermarket queue. It means we probably will have moved past the point of being bio-hazards by the time we catch the ferry next Monday.  

I noticed the date on my phone - Friday 13th, I am not a superstitious person, but the coincidence did prompt a Google hunt into the origin of the myth. It's not ancient folklore as I had assumed. The number bit does go back some. The Vikings saw 13 as an unlucky number due to a legend about a cursed feast. Similarly, in medieval Europe the number 13 had negative connotations because it was the number of people who attended the last supper - 12 disciples plus Jesus. However the association between Friday and the number 13 can only be traced  back to a phrase in a French memoir published in the 1830s. In Britain there is no evidence of the superstition until the Edwardian era. Anyway, sceptical I may be, but I guess from now  I am going to remember every Friday 13th positively, well, in relation coronaviruses at least.