We have a visitor from ‘Murica here this week, so a little sightseeing was in order.

Our friend Miss S, has been here before, in fact when my wife went to establish our beachhead in the gite from hell, Miss S came with her. She is no stranger to a wintery Bergerac, so there wasn’t any handwaving and explaining to do…”you should see it in the summer… it is so busy!” that sort of thing.

Lunch. Down by the river, near the big Bergerac sign. You know the place.
Nice food, brisk freaking walk.

Sightseeing
Off to the Marce de Noel next. My wife and Miss S stopped off to shop for warm things, I went forward, tripped into a patisserie and accidentally bought a bag of pain au chocolate, and helped a little old lady across the street.

She was probably 1.5m (6.5 axolotls) when her spine was straight, but now she was barely over a meter (4 axolotls). She approached the cross walk and started rattling off to me in French. I heard the word “voiture” (automobile) in there so I figured why not help. I stopped traffic, let her cross, and proceeded to accidentally eat a pastry while sitting on a bench of frozen stone.

This is the non-construction of a department store that has not moved a single brick in the 604 days we have been here.

The little old lady was long gone by the time I took this picture.

The marche de noel was uneventful, they are more of a night thing, but with temperatures predicted to go below 0C, we thought a day trip would be sufficient.

For reference, my scale of temperature C

• 40C+ San Fernando Valley asphalt in the summer.
• 30C to 40C Wait, it gets hot here?
• 20C to 30C This is fine.
• 10C to 20C Oh, burr. This feel like the skating rink at Laurel Plaza
• 0C to 10C Oh dear. This is quite unexpected.
• Below 0C Holy shit. This is winter.

We shuffled like penguins in the antarctic and fetched the car, and went grocery shopping.

Gros Cheries (big cherries)

The grocery store here is amazing. the color palette changes with the season, and presently we are all melonie, appleie and generally all harvestie with regards to the products.

Shopping finished, it was now time to go home… only we couldn’t.

This is a useful formula

Capacity(T)≈Capacity(25∘C)×[1−0.01×(25−T)]for T<25∘C

When a standard automotive battery is at 5C, like at the grocery store, it is at 80% capacity. Our battery came with the car. The car was used… you see where this is going by now…

So the car would not start. Not in the usual way I am used to a car not starting, the ah-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh sound… (Dogs make a similar sound when they barf) or the dreaded rattling click of the starter solenoid barely managing to engage (sounds like dental tools rattling around, or those cool metal Korean chopsticks)

This was an automotive seizure.
The computer lost its shit.

We called our roadside assistance service we pay for through our insurance provider. A tow truck will be here in 30 minutes.

3 Adults in a car. It was 5C when we left the house at noon. It can’t be any warmer. The moisture from our breath is condensing.

An hour later the tow truck arrives. He pops a small car battery on top of ours and jumpstarts us. He lived in Arizona, speaks great English (a necessity here he informs us) and we drive to the dealership where we bought the car. It is 10 minutes until 18:00 (6:00P.M. in freedom hours). They stayed open to help us, and gave us a loaner ather than making us wait the estimated 90 minutes for a cab.

A caveat, the loaner is a 2 seater. We are 3.
The clerk there Pascale, lives 2 villages over, so she gives me a ride.

The next day

My wife takes the loaner to the dealership.
The car starts fine.

She takes it to the actual factory service center.

They do a detailed diagnostic on the battery.

I like my Lead acid batteries to be at 12.6V to 12.8V and you can knock off another 35 A off that 350A since the car was now warm when they tested.

The battery the car wants is not available in the area. There is another, more powerful battery locally. If the internal resistance isn’t too much for the charge circuitry, we’ll be ok…

This isn’t really a France thing so much as a small city thing. but until you go through the process, you don’t know.

My wife and Miss S are now off shopping and I am at home blogging and hoping the car starts later.