Saturday, our 56th wedding anniversary, was planned as a museum visiting day; a calmer one, we hoped. The Musee de Bande Dessinee is housed in an old winery on the north bank of the Charente river below the city. However, only the decorated façade remains with a modern building behind, all steel and wooden cladding.

I had read on the musee’s wiki page that it housed over 12000 plates and designs. In fact, the statistics that we discovered about the film and associated industries in Angouleme were quite gobsmacking for what we had naively imagined as simply a charming and historic city. It is the prefecture of the Charente department and apart from its paper making and engineering works hosts ‘forty animation and video game studios that produce half of France’s animated production’. Blimey!

We were hoping too for a physically easier day. With a handy car park and a flat concourse leading to the museum entrance, the poorly one wouldn’t be shaken to bits and pushing him would be a doddle, fingers crossed. But firstly, I had to pop up to the centre for a few bits. Arriving by Herge’s bust I discovered a few stalls, one of them selling second hand books. Of course, I had to buy a Tintin, for old times sake and given where we were.

Just as I was paying there was a tremendous amount of hooting coming from higher up the road and suddenly a cavalcade of mopeds and scooters swept down the pedestrianised street, their riders in bizarre dress and accompanied by a lot of noise and waving. Later a shop customer told me it happened periodically and was various motor associations who came together to ride out in this way. This town was full of surprises!

Without the wheelchair I was able to return to the hotel via a different route, taking in a view across ‘our’ part of the city from the ramparts.

Off at last, ignoring the GPS who wanted to lose us in yesterday’s alleyways, I found our way down to the river and across to the musee. As we approached the entrance there were chairs being set out on the huge concourse plus a sound system and buvette. Something was happening later, it would appear.

Inside the cavernous building we found the museum entrance but the lift up to it was ‘en panne’. The girl on the desk rushed over convinced it was working but no! So himself got out and, using one of his ‘canne anglais’ (stored in a baguette bag swinging from one of the wheelchair’s handles), got himself up the short flight of stairs while I bumped up his chariot.

Free entry for the handicape and reduced entry for me as his accompanying helper. We don’t have any supporting evidence but the presence of sticks etc seems to work each time, we’ve discovered.

The present exhibition at the musee takes as its theme the rise of BD associated with rock music and associated publications. I noticed a lot of alternative and anarchic magazines featured too.

Happily, there was enough space for the handicape to trundle himself around without me and we both spent ages exploring the images as well as reading many of them.

It was a trip down memory lane for two oldies like us!

As we moved through we came to the animation section where videos were playing and we were reminded of how the cyclist at age 11 was determined this would be his career. It didn’t happen but he did end up at art school.

It was hard to move on sometimes with so many fascinating images to enjoy and to recognise with a smile…

But move on we did and found ourselves in a huge room with enormous circular sofas set as a series of islands, each one with low central bookcases as well as display cases with BD books or those graphic novels.

Now would have been a good time to relax and enjoy leafing through the offered volumes or poring over the display cases. The problem was we were both into exhibition overload and the air-conditioning in this area was positively arctic. I wished I had a cardigan!

This room was described as representing the maturing of the BD form, moving away from children’s comics and the work we had already seen and into some quite serious representations. I was intrigued by a case showing the work of two illustrators who used the story of a photo journalist’s experiences of the Russian advance into Afghanistan.

We tore ourselves away, promising we’d be back at some future time, and went in search of lunch. The musee cafe was closed but there were dispensing machines in the entrance hall. There then followed a Peacock pantomime as we attempted to get coffee with sugar from one and sandwiches from the other. Eventual success with the coffee but the sandwiches needed the intervention of the burly chap behind the bookshop counter who threw his weight against the machine until my two sandwiches were dislodged from their position above the exit bin. I had had the bright idea that buying a second one would mean it dropped onto the marooned one….wrong!

We picnicked on a bench outside under a shady tree. The second visit of the day was to the Musee du Papier on the other side of the Charente which was reached by a footbridge.

We were beginning to notice how warm the day had turned while we’d been indoors and were glad to find some shade inside the doorway to the closed musee du Papier. I’d forgotten it shut for lunch!

The museum building had had many reincarnations throughout its existence, beginning as a brewery for a religious order before eventually becoming a paper mill and manufacturer in the late 19th century.

It seemed its main claim to fame was the manufacture of cigarette papers. We enjoyed poking about the old building which was open to the air but cool. There were photographs of the workers and I commented it must have been deafening for them given the present volume of noise coming from the water thundering through the sluice gates below us.

The two ladies in charge were very concerned that we benefit from all that the musee had to offer so insisted we ring up to them via the intercom when we wanted to use the lift to the first floor. This involved us leaving the building and waiting at a locked door further along, being let into a pitch dark room and then being led to a lift by the light of a mobile phone from which we emerged into a gloomy and very hot art gallery on the first floor. I went through to pay our entrance fee but discovered there was no charge due to our disabled status. A magnet and postcard were purchased out of guilt for all the fuss. And the fact that we were suffocating from heat and disinterested in the limited art on display, a retrospective of past exhibitors so a tad random.

Leaving involved the same lift and locked door saga in reverse but finally we were back outside and recrossing the Charente, past the interesting statue with his flyaway coat tails.

As we reached the far side there was a girl rehearsing a graceful ballet in front of the sound system. I felt sorry for her, dancing on that surface and in that heat.

Back at the hotel the pool looked extremely inviting, so armed with a book I left himself taking a nap in front of the rugby while I cooled off gratefully……

That evening we toasted our anniversary over our exclusive room service meal.