It’s Monday 4th June, so someone is turning 60 today and he’s decided that it is now time to stop turning tricks on his bike in skateboard parks…..
We were woken early by the mobile phone ringing at 5:30am. In our sleepy state neither of us got to the phone in time to answer the call, which must have been someone calling from Australia at that time in the morning! We’ve searched the number and can’t find who it was, so apologies to whoever it was that tried to call. We went back to sleep for a while and then Rodney opened his cards and few presents before walking into the pretty village of Beynac-et-Cazenac. We couldn’t find the Monday market; “sorry it doesn’t start until June 15th, it’s a printing error”, so we strolled up the cobbled streets very slowly to the Chateau de Beynac, as always at the very top of the village. There are fabulous views from the top, well worth the exhausting walk up there.
We had a three course lunch at the Hotel du Chateau, back down at the bottom of the village and then strolled, with very full bellies, along the river back to the campsite. We read our books, looked at our photos and then strapped everything down in Eileen for a drive down to the Chateau de Montrecour at 5:30pm.
Our big moment of the trip had arrived. To celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and also Rodney’s 60th we had booked a trip with Perigord Montgolfieres for a flight over the Dordogne in a hot air balloon. (www.perigord-dordogne-montgolfieres.com ) We watched the preparations and kept our eyes on the windsock.
At 8:20pm Rodney and one of the other passengers got in to the basket ready for take off. I was so excited and ready to hop in too, but unfortunately more gusts of wind picked up and Patrick, our pilot, decided to bail out. It was getting too late to keep waiting for the breeze to settle, so our money was returned and they said they would call us at 5:50 in the morning, if there was a possibility of flying on Tuesday.
Feeling very disappointed, we went back to the campsite and wandered over to the bar for a drink. It had closed at 8pm and, like today’s market, it doesn’t stay open later until mid June. So we toasted Rodney’s big day inside Eileen instead and tried to get a good night’s sleep as we didn’t want to miss our 5:50am phone call.
