This is the notice that has upset Sally so much:

Sunday (4th) was uneventful, really. THEY had café-croissant at Baie de Somme services and we travelled on through very fine weather – which is unusual for us in Picardie – stopping for fuel at a Centre Commercial just off the motorway before Calais and for lunch at Epitre, where, on other occasions, we’ve spent the night.

We’ve never seen Calais’ beach looking so inviting! 

The Channel Crossing was ‘millpond’ smooth – in fact, I’ve seen choppier millponds, and seemed to go quite quickly; well, it was only half an hour (!).

Leaving Dover was slow, but we weren’t stopped, unlike others around us – we can’t look guilty however hard we try!

Then we motored on to Bransgore, near Christchurch. Christchurch is in Dorset, but Bransgore is in Hampshire. That day we’d done 468kms, making 1,369kms from Sunejo. That’s about 855 miles. I need a rest!

We parked up on the pitch which had been reserved for us, with a notice in the window to tell us where it was although the office was closed, and had a ‘3 tin’ meal for supper.

Monday 5th August: up fairly early to take Harry to see Ben, who did the major repair last year. An oil leak needed sorting, but it was nothing to do with the previous repair. The weather was wet so we spent the rest of the morning at the garden centre where they have a café with free wi-fi. –

And how did you get from Ben’s workshop to the garden centre? Was I there or was I not there? Was I any use at all? And what would you have done if Harry had not been fixed on that day? Would you have gone anywhere or just been stuck?

We wouldn’t have slept in you, that’s for sure. But of course, you were very useful, and have been all the time – do you want to write a bit of the diary?

Non.

Right. (I wish she’d stop sulking – we’re probably not going to sell her anyway; the people from the Isle of Wight who were going to meet us because they wanted a car already equipped to be towed have made other arrangements.)  We’d been there so long that we thought we should have lunch at the garden centre, then we browsed and bought some stuff, like birdfood and citronella flares which were on BOGOF. Meanwhile we had contacted Martyn (Carol’s Brother) and agreed to meet him and Jasmine at the pub in Bransgore later that evening.

Tuesday 6th: I had an appointment with the Chiropractor in the morning. We do know now what’s been wrong with THAT leg for the last year. My French Doctor finally sent me to have it x-rayed, and we can see that all the cartilage has gone from the hip joint. So it’s just a matter of time until I say ‘let’s have a replacement’. Meanwhile, no serious walking; swimming OK, also cycling.

Wednesday 7th: a lazy day. We called on Martyn & Jasmine in the evening and we also went looking for Trevor and Pam. (Trevor is the Esperanto speaker whom we stayed with last year while Harry was being repaired and we went to his wedding with Pam in January.) However, for the second time when we’ve been in Mudeford since the wedding, they were away.

Thursday 8th: Another session with the Chiropractor, then back to the caravan park to collect Carol AND SALLY –

Huh!

And we got on the road for Welwyn. Once parked up there, Sally, what happened next?

I took you into Potters Bar to Carol’s Brother’s house.

You did. And there we met the first of the babies, not to mention Arnie, the dog:

This is Sophie (the Baby, that is), the daughter of Nick and Ceri whose wedding we went to in Wales in October.

Ah, oui! I did that. Harry was not present. You see, I can be very useful.

No-one ever said otherwise.

Friday 9th: took Harry to Hitchin to have his hab. service, and a couple of other jobs. But one job couldn’t be done because parts are needed, so we’re going to come back in two weeks. Sally?

Oui?

Do you want to say what we did while Harry was being worked on?

Ummm …… si  tu veux. I took you to Baldock to see Hilde.

Where we had elevenses, or ‘zweites Fruhstück’. Very welcome, thanks, Hilde!

Then I took you back to get Harry.

And after browsing motorhomes and the accessory shop, buying a table and a solar battery charger, we travelled in convoy via Tescos back to the Caravan Club site at Welwyn.

…… what should have been a quiet night ! Ha!

Soon after we settled down a terrific thunderstorm kicked off. At first, it seemed like it was going to be thunder and lightning only, like one we’d had at home a few days earlier, but then the rain started, followed by the hail. (This would NOT have been a good time to have had to change the gas bottle, so thank fortune that we had had to do it at home!) The battering was horrendous – we couldn’t see the hailstones, but they must have been a fair size. Also, we seemed to be pretty near the centre of the storm, not only because of the almost continuous flashing and crashing, but because the rain and hail came round three times! So it went on till about 3.30 in the morning.

By 7 o’clock you’d think nothing had happened! Warm sunshine had dried everything up and there was no visible sign of damage to either vehicle.

You haven’t seen my roof!

That’s true.

I’m OK; I’m still sellable, so you do not need to worry about that.

Don’t be sarcy!

Sarcy! Moi? You have to ask where I got that from.

….… Our little parking circle was full of cars and people having breakfast from the boot; there were other motorhomes, too. I went to get some croissants and so on for breakfast – the main car park was heaving! People were circling looking for spaces, then giving up and parking on kerbs, against hedges, anywhere. The restaurant was busier than it had been the previous evening (when it had been busy enough) and the staff were working very hard. But I was served with a smile and the usual courtesies, and set off back to Harry and Carol. It was a comparatively long walk and that leg didn’t like it, but we enjoyed our breakfast.

‘back to Harry and Carol’ – I wasn’t there, then.

The breakfast was for Carol, and we sat in Harry to eat it – that’s what I meant.

Tu parles.

The busy-ness, of course, was due to the fact that it was the first Saturday in August, and the start of the great French getaway.

Ja, but fortunately for us the French were all heading south. During the day we saw lots of slow-moving traffic on the other side of the motorway, but our side was flowing well. Of the people who overtook us, many were Brits, Belgians and Dutch returning from a very hot holiday in the south, or in Spain.

This was a long day; we did 549kms, stopping for fuel at Limoges, of course – THEY’ve learnt their lesson about that and eventually finding parking spaces for elevenses (about 12 o’clock) and lunch; at every service area the spaces marked for Motorhomes and Caravans were occupied by cars, so in the end we just stopped for lunch at the side of the exit road from the service area; others were doing the same. As we went along we occasionally saw some MEN with GUNS (boys in blue in UK terms) and wondered whether they would stop us because of the towing, but they took no notice.

(Sexist remark alert! : I don’t like seeing armed police as routine, but if there’s one thing that worries me more than MEN with GUNS, it’s WOMEN with GUNS!  What a dreadful thing to say!)

And as for being stopped, we couldn’t count the number of illegal bike racks we saw, all travelling freely with unreadable number plates.

At Rouen THEY were hoping to find the route THEY took going the other way last time in Sally –

Between the white cliffs and the river, I remember! Nice of you to mention me; Merci, Harry!

Kein Problem! BUT, although SATNAV was set for Darnétal, THEY didn’t find the correct river crossing and by trying to avoid the long diversion as signed, we ended up in that dreadful crawl which is the centre of Rouen.

And this time there weren’t even any Christmas lights to cheer THEM up as we inched forward at between 0 and 3 miles an hour for about twenty minutes.

‘Inched forward’ – as a European, shouldn’t you say ‘centimetered forward’ ?

Dass ist aber Blödsinn! Napoleonic nonsense!

Once over the river we began to move more freely and, as always, after the tunnel, vrrooommm! So we got to the Bosc Mesnil service Area at about 7.45pm and parked up. This is where we spent New Year’s Eve.

Parking wasn’t easy, because of cars in the caravan bays, but we managed and shunted to a  better spot once someone else had moved. The weather was better than Dec 31^st, complete with sunset:

But the lorry park was busy and some wagons had fridges going all night, so it wasn’t quiet! However, we indulged in our classic ‘Lapin Au Van’, prepared at home last week and brought along as a ‘square’ meal (i.e. frozen in a block).

The building work which was going on at Bosc Mesnil in December / January seems to be complete, but we weren’t impressed. You might expect a new building to have automatic doors, not push-pull-collide-with-folk-coming-the-other-way doors. You would expect a new motorway restaurant to offer wi-fi and to stay open well into the evening. We know it had been a busy day, but the loos weren’t as clean as we expected, nor were they at seven in the morning. And I expected the enquiry about wi-fi to be treated to some sort of expression of regret, not ‘pas du tout, Monsieur’. We won’t make a point of going there again, but it is in a good place so we may give it another chance.