Given the lack of campervan services at the Mairie campervan parking area, we switched campgrounds this morning and went to the La Font de la Merle campground a little bit further up the valley. This place had all the required campervan services plus a cafe and pool, so it promises to be a bit more convenient. We were soon set up with shade awning, table and chairs in our leafy environment.

Phil and Kathy came to the new campground in the late morning, and Phil insisted on having a look at the fridge to see what was wrong. I showed him how the auto-selector was always stuck on "battery-power" no matter what else was happening. Normally the battery should only be used when the engine is running and the alternator is providing power. But now the battery was still selected when the engine was turned off, no matter whether the van was connected to mains power or not. The C7 charger should have rectified that when we were connected to mains power, as we now were, but we now found that the dial for the level of cooling was also broken, and was stuck on "low power". So even if the C7 was working properly, the fridge would only stay on low power and never cool down enough to be useful!

So we decided to forget about the fridge for the moment, after putting some cooler bricks and frozen water bottles in the freezer to keep the important things cool, and went with Phil and Kathy to the market at Grand Coombe. It was not a very big market, and was closing down for the day when we arrived, so we then decided to go for lunch in the nearby town of Le Pradel. We found the restaurant, which was very popular with locals, and because of the narrow streets in the area, we parked on the sidewalk like everyone else. The restaurant was very lively, and had good food and drinks. So two hours later, we were the last group to leave after lunch. As we returned to Phil's hire car, we noticed that both windscreen wipers were standing upright. We put them back down but noticed that one of them was not lying flat on the windscreen, Further inspection showed that someone had bent the wipers back on themselves and twisted the metal arms. No idea who would have done this, but we suspected the guy outside whose house we had parked. Not very friendly! Phil dropped us back at the campground and then went home to try to fix the wipers .

We spent the late afternoon just hanging around the campground. I was enchanted by the Robin Red Breasts who hopped around our campsite and were extremely unafraid of coming very close to where I was sitting. We also went for a walk and found the table tennis table for a few games, and then retired to the cafe for an evening drink.

As we checked our emails this evening, we found one from the Dijon Prefecture, saying that we had an appointment for a rendezvous meeting (RDV) at 0840h on September 5th about my Carte de Sejour application. We had been waiting over 2 months for this appointment, and knew that we couldn't ignore this appointment. But that would mean returning to Auxonne early and abandoning the planned campervan trip. We were unsure whether to be happy or sad. So we went to bed early and had a good night's sleep with no partying teenagers outside.