the day of not finding much

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Today was the day I was excited for. Today we were going to see donkeys in pyjamas and have an ice cream with one. Ash also had plans to fulfil a life long ambition and give a donkey ride to a donkey. On his back. We plugged Simon the sat nav in and set on our way. I realised pretty soon that Simon was giving us a route a good two hours longer than Google so I checked and yep, yet again Simon was sabotaging our nice small three hour journey. Now I can only assume one of three things. One, Simon doesn't like French toll roads so avoids them. Two, Simon doesn't like us much so is determined to make every trip longer just to annoy us or three, Simon is sad to only be used once a year so feels the need to make himself 'useful' for longer. ( clearly I've ruled out any user error as a technological genius). As a result of whatever in built hatred Simon has we had to stay on main roads and hope for the best today which worked surprisingly well until we came to look for the donkeys. Ile de re is a lovely place, apparently teeming with donkeys in pyjamas. It's not. We looked and found none. I was surprisingly sad and may be finding a donkey to dress up when we're back in the UK. Ultimately it may have been the fact that we're driving round an enormous essentially un parkable van and the Ile de re is quite small. At least we got an ice cream and a paddle in the sea though when we did find somewhere to parkeven if it was without donkeys. From there we decided to go to a supermarket and head to the campsite for a swim and a barbecue. Sitting here now I can tell you that one of those things we managed perfectly. The other, despite actually having turned round in a supermarket car park, we did not manage. True to form, rather than stop at one of the four supermarkets further from the campsite, we waited. And waited until, yep, we were at the camp site which has a lovely pool but no shop or cafe. After a little hangry moment I chilled out and resigned myself to tea of crisps and dried mango. The tea of champions I'm sure. The pool was lovely if full of French kids who, I can confirm, en masse are just like British kids ( make of that what you will). The evening was topped off with a game of mini golf. I suck at mini golf to the point of being laughed at by a ten year old French boy watching from the pool. Oh well, maybe tomorrow I'll have more success finding dressed up animals, supermarkets and some skill at some kind of sport.

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