We spend the morning mostly on the patio.  There are still the few travellers left down the road and some strains of ‘music’ can be heard, but nowhere near as bad as before.  We have planned an easy day today after yesterday’s frantic activities.  So we marvel at Chris as he works on taming the jay.  It is definitely getting bolder.  I saw it this morning through my bedroom window, sitting in the middle of the patio and staring up at me.  I rushed outside and distributed some peanuts, rushing back in to grab camera.  However when I look out again the jay has gone, and so have all the peanuts.  At one point after a Chris whistle, a blue tit flies boldly on to Chris’s outstretched hand and takes a peanut from his fingers.  A typical friendly French bird!  But again the blue tit obviously knows I don’t have my camera handy. 

After delicious lunchtime nibbles J, L and I set off for a little walk along the lane, with Chelsea in the pushchair, as we have a window before departing for the mineral baths.  I am so out of suitable adjectives to describe this place.  The lane has blossom trees on either side, and the sun is smiling on us.  Here and there the little road is crossed by gurgling mountain brooks.  On one side of the road there is valley leading down to the road.  On the other are the mountains and high villages, including an unused mine.  Heaven?  

At one point Chelsea starts to wriggle and decides she wants to get out of the pushchair and go for a swim in one of the streams.  Nearby there is a chap busy digging his patch out in the field, ready for growing.  He has surrounded it by unsightly corrugated iron sheeting, some of which is rusty.  But it will serve very well to protect his crops from some of the wildlife we suppose.

We turn back so as to get ready for our next treat, the mineral baths at Monêtier.  I went here on my last visit and can’t wait to repeat it.  It is as before except that now, as they are at long last developing and building a super new site here, some of the views of the mountains from the pool are blotted out by fencing.  But the essential ingredients are the same.  A leisurely lounge in the little outside pool in very warm water, followed by a 15 minute wallow in the warm hydro mineral water bath. Some of the jets are very strong.  But afterwards you feel very relaxed and then lounge again on the beds in the conservatory area in your complimentary bathrobe.  There is fresh mountain water on tap to sip, and for a while we feel like chilling millionaires.

All too soon some French people lurk eyeing up our sunbeds and we decide it is time to move off.  There have been plans to develop these natural mineral waters at Monêtier into a more sophisticated facility for many years.  There hasn’t been the money to do so before but now it is full steam ahead.  The plans look very ambitious, lots of wood and glass so quite beautiful.  It is scheduled to be finished sometime next year.  Bring it on.

Afterwards another extremely scenic route back, through every little village Lin has ever been to.  They are all so interesting and quaint.  We pass a church in Chantemerle and surprisingly it is open (all the others had been shut everywhere).  J and I leap out and want to go inside.  It is plain and beautiful inside, very old of course, but full of gilt at one end! - where the altar and statues are.  This is L’Eglise de Saint Andre et Saint Jacques.  The only information inside is of the services in other nearby churches, and publicity about the national voting to come!  Maddening as it would be good to know a little more about its history.

Then we arrive back for Chris’s piece de resistance – The Sunday Roast Duck Meal.  Totally dribblingly gorgeous.  The duck was especially lovely, with loads of roast veggies and of course it wouldn’t be a roast without Yorkshire pudding and gravy.  How he achieves this (huge meals!) in the poky kitchen quarters and little oven is an enduring mystery as you cannot do it all at once.  Many many thanks to our kind and so clever chef.  We will be talking about this meal (amongst many other things) I suspect, for years to come.

Later we watched a film “A Good Year” which was based on the book by Peter Mayle, and starred Russell Crowe.  It is about life in Provence and was visually as you would expect, a bit of a tourist attraction.  However we all agreed that Russell Crowe was entirely miscast as the lead, which we thought would have been much better served by someone like Hugh Grant.  Russ is not best at comedy or an Englishman.