That’s cheating! That photo was taken when Rachel, Viki, Scout & I came back from St. Valery! Never mind! We sailed out under blue skies on a calm sea, and enjoyed lunch during the crossing to Dunkerque. Once off the ferry, we passed lots of petrol stations, no queues and diesel less expensive than in England ……….. ! **@$%!! Soon after leaving Dunkerque Harry squawked at us and put up a warning “SERVICE OIL NOW”. What? Sufficiently alarmed, and not thinking straight, we headed for the first available Centre Commerciale, bought some oil and bunged it in. Back on the road, the warning was STILL THERE! Then it dawned – we didn’t need oil; we needed a service including an oil change. (No flashing or constant red oilcan icon) But hang on …. the vehicle was serviced in April before sale and the service interval is once a year or 30,000 kms…… we haven’t done that! Finally we worked it out; the warning appeared at exactly 30,000kms on the clock – flippin’ Harrald, the German dealer, hadn’t reset the on-board computer when he did the service! Grrr!Gradually the clouds gathered and the drizzle started. We found a caravan park in a little town called Beaurainville (which seems to mean ‘Fine rain town’ – it doesn’t, of course, but ….) where a nice warden/owner allowed us to occupy three pitches for the price of one, so as not to have to uncouple, and advised us to park ‘a cheval’ – we got the idea (one wheel on the grass, one on the tarmac) but struggled with the image (astride?) – because if it carried on raining, we’d just sink when we tried to move. ‘Mais, il y a le tracteur’ (But the tractor’s there). And it rained! But in the event, we’d parked using our levellers so that there was only a little bit of grass/mud between the wheels and the tarmac that we got away quite easily.As we journeyed south skies brightened, tho showers continued, and we had a satisfactory lunch at a service area. We’re avoiding toll roads (motorways) and respecting speed limits for vehicles towing 80 / 90 kph (50 / 56mph) so progress is fairly slow. When we do find a stretch of toll-free motorway the lay-bys and service areas tend to be much pleasanter than in England:

(the white edifice in the photo is the loo block – this is just a lay-by, no facilities but parking, picnic tables loos and telephone.).Now we began to notice queues at petrol stations; some were closed, and some had petrol only – no diesel. We had to do some shopping, anyway, so we found a supermarket with a queue for the petrol station (a good sign – they must have some) and joined the queue. The manoeuvering was a bit tricky with the car in tow, but we managed and the diesel was limited to 40euros, but OK, we got that and parked up. When came out – petrol station was closed! If we’d shopped first ……Choosing our caravan parks isn’t straightforward – most closed at the end of September, so we have to look carefully at the info we have in our directories. Tuesday night we headed for Bonneval, a delightful park on the banks of the river Loir. (That’s not a mis-type Le Loir is a tributary of the better known La Loire.)

The sun shines on Harry at Bonneval.

Just below our pitch, the River Cher.

Again, a very pleasant lady warden directed us to a spot where we could park ‘lengthways’ without uncoupling and on firm ground, but when we did, and began to chat with the English couple in a little DIY van conversion ‘over the road’ we noticed that ‘Sally’s’ brake lights were still on, though everything was switched off and they shouldn’t have been. Roy took a helpful interest and worked out that the brake cable on the  A-frame was too tight. He identified where adjustment was possible and, with an assortment of spanners from his own tool kit, fixed it. Least we could do was invite Roy and Angela out of the drizzle to drinks and nibbles in our luxurious (by comparison) surroundings. It turned out that Angela is a foreign languages teacher who used to work at Kingsthorpe Upper School, Northampton! They also tried (not very hard) to sell us a place they are vacating near Limoges, but it’s not quite what we’re looking for. Sunrise thru the trees next morning (Wednesday) was a treat!:

Bonneval in the Valley of the Cher is a lovely site, and sun-up through the trees was delightful.

But with fresh croissants for breakfast and routine jobs to do (mainly concerning water) we didn’t get away till midday! But the weather was sunnier now and we travelled steadily, crossing La Loire in Tours, which brought memories of evenings in August 1972, when I spent a month there on a course for Primary School French Teachers.   

                                  

So as we approached Poitiers – another old haunt, exchange visits Boothville/Henri IV – we were able to shop and fill up with diesel without limit, so we have a full tank which we don’t need for at least a week, and make our way to the ‘Futuriste’ caravan park, one we’d read about in Motorcaravan Magazine (now no more!), and which takes it’s name from the nearby ‘Futuroscope’ Theme Park. They are also in the ‘Camping Cheques’ network, a voucher discount scheme recommended to us 2 years ago by a couple we met on the way down to Languedoc. You buy vouchers from Caravan Club before departure (when booking your ferry crossing thru the club) and you get your overnight fees, with electricity, for well less than the ‘drop in’ price (out of season). You can also get – as here now – offers like 7 nights for six vouchers, so we’ve booked in for a week.                                                               

More later – but for now: Everybody Speaks English  (But can the English understand the English everybody speaks?)Most people, we think would sort this out:– Please note the rubbishes are outside the campsite.

But we defy anyone without a knowledge of French to know what this means:– It is forbidden to place layers into to the rubbishes.

And this?– Bricks may be placed with the plastic.

Answers on a postcard ….. no, as a comment.

How Harry (With Sally Close Behind) Travelled Through The Storm To Park Up In a Splendid Sunset And Came Home By a Radiant Rainbow. Meanwhile ‘A Place In The Sun’ Was a Soggy Saga and Some Esperanto Speakers Discovered Some Dangerous Words In Chester.

Having seen gruesome weather forecasts for Friday 1st October, we pulled Harry out of the garden and hooked up to Sally (which is taking us about 20 minutes) on Thursday afternoon. Just as well. We still had plenty of stuff to carry out in the heavy shower which merged into the longer period of rain through which we drove to Chester on Friday afternoon. But things dried up as we neared our destination – Manor Wood Caravan Park – so that as we parked up and sorted things out (not including putting the tent / awning up as this was only a one-night stop-over) we were treated to a fine sunset, overseen by a watchful crow:

Next day we arranged to leave Harry at Manor Wood and go into Chester in the little car. Carol dropped me off at the venue for the Esperanto Federation Meeting and then discovered the delights of trying to find somewhere to park in Chester! She didn’t really ‘do’ the city, but did see the Cathedral from the outside:

Meanwhile an international gathering of Esperanto speakers (from Italy, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Scotland, Wales and even Yorkshire) met informally for lunch, then more formally for a bit of business before hearing from the Speaker, Francesco Maurelli, from Italy, about his travels, mainly in Brazil and Australia. The event concluded with separate groups for intermediate and advanced speakers. Helping (I hope) the intermediate group, I drew their attention to the danger of word-for-word translation and ‘dictionaryitis’. It was interesting that the non-English speakers present confirmed that the examples I gave were more or less incomprehensible to anyone who couldn’t work out what the original mistranslated English had been.

Carol arrived to dig me out prompt at 5 o’clock and we made our way back to Manor Wood to reunite the two vehicles. We then travelled on through increasingly bad weather to arrive at Somers Wood (Meriden) in very heavy rain. Nothing for it but to put on waterproofs and do what had to be done – take in water and unhook the vehicles before parking up. The rain eased off during the night, but was chucking it down again in the morning. Visiting the National Exhibition Centre in really bad weather is an experience to be avoided if at all possible. We were guided to park about mid-way between the shuttle-bus stop and the exhibition hall, so walk or ride, we were going to get soaked. There are no covered walkways.

However, arriving at the ‘A Place in the Sun’ Exhibition soaking wet, it was surprising how quickly we dried out! In spite finding that on the one occasion when you wanted hot air driers in the toilets, there weren’t any! Roller towels only! Presumably it was the air conditioning that did the job. As for the exhibition, we were a bit ‘miffed’ that contrary to advance publicity and information in the show guide, there were actually no auditions for ‘A Place in the Sun’ or ‘A Place in the Sun – Home or Away?’. They were auditioning for a programme for people looking to set up a business overseas, but that wasn’t us. Still, we filled in an application for future consideration, and made a number of possibly useful contacts – estate agents are already sending e-mails of ‘interesting’ properties, and we have contact numbers for people to get in touch with once we are there. (Where?!)

That was Sunday 3rd October. Monday was fine and we made our way to Warwick Castle, which Carol had never seen before. It is a splendid example of a Stately Home within the walls of a fortified castle, but it’s an expensive visit. The current owners (wasn’t it with Madame Tussaud’s for a while?) have done a lot with animations using live actors. The photos do not include the ‘Dungeon Experience’!

We started at the watermill – always there for grinding corn (and catching eels) but used for generating electricity in later years.

We walked the battlements (‘530 steep steps which can be tiring’ – we were warned!) in the last hour before closing.

The main gateway is really impressive. (Though the clock’s wrong!)

Maybe I’ll make an album of the other pictures – we took quite a lot.

The journey home on Tuesday was happily uneventful – apart from the complete rainbow which accompanied for some distance. We found no crock of gold, but maybe sunny days are ahead – our Channel Crossing is actually booked! Watch this space!

Next day we arranged to leave Harry at Manor Wood and go into Chester in the little car. Carol dropped me off at the venue for the Esperanto Federation Meeting and then discovered the delights of trying to find somewhere to park in Chester! She didn’t really ‘do’ the city, but did see the Cathedral from the outside:

May 2026 – Photos missing – can’t be found to reinstate them.                                

Meanwhile an international gathering of Esperanto speakers (from Italy, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Scotland, Wales and even Yorkshire) met informally for lunch, then more formally for a bit of business before hearing from the Speaker, Francesco Maurelli, from Italy, about his travels, mainly in Brazil and Australia. The event concluded with separate groups for intermediate and advanced speakers. Helping (I hope) the intermediate group, I drew their attention to the danger of word-for-word translation and ‘dictionaryitis’. It was interesting that the non-English speakers present confirmed that the examples I gave were more or less incomprehensible to anyone who couldn’t work out what the original mistranslated English had been.

Carol arrived to dig me out prompt at 5 o’clock and we made our way back to Manor Wood to reunite the two vehicles. We then travelled on through increasingly bad weather to arrive at Somers Wood (Meriden) in very heavy rain. Nothing for it but to put on waterproofs and do what had to be done – take in water and unhook the vehicles before parking up. The rain eased off during the night, but was chucking it down again in the morning. Visiting the National Exhibition Centre in really bad weather is an experience to be avoided if at all possible. We were guided to park about mid-way between the shuttle-bus stop and the exhibition hall, so walk or ride, we were going to get soaked. There are no covered walkways.

However, arriving at the ‘A Place in the Sun’ Exhibition soaking wet, it was surprising how quickly we dried out! In spite finding that on the one occasion when you wanted hot air driers in the toilets, there weren’t any! Roller towels only! Presumably it was the air conditioning that did the job. As for the exhibition, we were a bit ‘miffed’ that contrary to advance publicity and information in the show guide, there were actually no auditions for ‘A Place in the Sun’ or ‘A Place in the Sun – Home or Away?’. They were auditioning for a programme for people looking to set up a business overseas, but that wasn’t us. Still, we filled in an application for future consideration, and made a number of possibly useful contacts – estate agents are already sending e-mails of ‘interesting’ properties, and we have contact numbers for people to get in touch with once we are there. (Where?!)

That was Sunday 3rd October. Monday was fine and we made our way to Warwick Castle, which Carol had never seen before. It is a splendid example of a Stately Home within the walls of a fortified castle, but it’s an expensive visit. The current owners (wasn’t it with Madame Tussaud’s for a while?) have done a lot with animations using live actors. The photos do not include the ‘Dungeon Experience’!

Maybe I’ll make an album of the other pictures – we took quite a lot.

The journey home on Tuesday was happily uneventful – apart from the complete rainbow which accompanied us for some distance. We found no crock of gold, but maybe sunny days are ahead – our Channel Crossing is actually booked! Watch this space!