If only I knew. 21/7/23

Donald Rumsfeld once said.

“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. “

That just about sums us up.

My mate Pete is always doing something, always going somewhere. He has trips planned months, some times years in advance.

He is a bit anal about it.

He get’s on Easy Jet web site on a certain day knowing the flights are being announced for the next 3 months ( or is it six?) and books his seats. That way he gets the really cheap deals.

You know the ones.

“3 seats for a tenner” or “Fly to Moscow for 1p” that sort of thing.

Of course they only ever offer a hand full of seats at those prices, and usually they go straight to Pete.

He also saves coupons, gets discount deals, or vouchers. He is a bit canny when it comes to savings.

He told me this story once.

Him and his wife went to Padstow in Cornwall ( Rick Steins Fiefdom).

Pete took the two kids out for lunch and bought them a medium size Pasty each.

“I saved 40p on each pasty cause I had a coupon”. He said proudly .

His wife took her mother to Rick Steins for lunch, and spent £200.

“Yeah I know, but if I’d have bought ‘large Pasties’ it would have cost me an extra £1.50.” He said triumphantly.

Why am I telling you this?

Well Brittany Ferries announced their new schedule for sailings (for the next 12 months) this week, and it became a bun fight.

I follow a FB site called Brittany Ferries Passenger Forum where customers can make comments about their sailings, the service they received, the standard of food etc.

Usually it’s people complaining, which is understandable but occasionally you get some positive feedback, or something helpful.

Occasionally people share tips or ideas about how to maximise the opportunity on a crossing, where to stay the night before, where is the best place to camp in Santander or pull over in St Malo.

But mainly it’s moaning.

And this week the ‘aches and pains’ group really went to town.

It seems every man and his Dog (more about that later) went on at 8 am trying to book their crossings on their chosen dates and get a bargain at the same time.

Sadly the weight of traffic crashed the site and left hundreds, if not thousands of people unable to get their booking confirmed. They were not happy.

They took to the FB site in droves expressing their frustrations and blaming everyone else for the problems.

In true FB tradition they started fighting amongst themselves, accusing other ‘types’ of passengers for the problems.

The most prolific moaners were the ‘ Doggy people’ who apparently book a dog friendly cabin at extortionate prices so they can take their pampered pooch to France or Spain for a little Holiday in the Sun where they can wilt in 40º heat.

It seems there aren’t enough Dog Cabins to go round, so some people haven’t been able to book the crossing they wanted.

“I have been booking this route, this crossing, this room for thirty years and now some one has beaten me to it”.

“It’s not fair. My Dog isn’t well and needs the king size bed to sleep on or it gets anxiety attacks”.

Some people have apparently been upset that there are now limits on the number and size of dogs you can take in any one room. In the past they could take the whole pack of Fox hounds from the Berkeley Hunt, but not any more.

When we sailed once our cheap cabin ( we only ever go for the cheap seats as Jaki is perfectly able to climb up into a top bunk, as demonstrated on the over night sleeper in Vietnam) was close to the Dog friendly cabins.

The noise was horrendous.

Barking and howling went on all night.

It seems the owners will be the ones doing the howling this year.

There are lots of people who take their dogs with them on holiday and this has become more complicated and significantly more expensive since Brexit, but it hasn’t stopped them.

Now you all know my views on Dogs in Spain.

We actually lived next to a road called “ Avenida de Dog Shittio” as a tribute to those who use the pavement as a dog loo.

So I’m not unduly worried that one less Pooch will be joining me in Spain next year.

I am though concerned that a large organisation like Brittany Ferries, which has a Monopoly on many crossings, can’t organise its IT system to cope with predicted demand and ends up looking like the Glastonbury Festival site at 5 minutes past nine on a Sunday morning!

Those of us who have had the misfortune to be at Glastonbury when it’s been wet will know just how miserable the English weather can be and this Summer has been no exception.

It has been pissing down here in Bristol for weeks. In fact, the only time it stopped was Glastonbury weekend and they had fantastic weather throughout!

Yesterday the BBC weather man with the big bulging eyes said there had been a whole months rain in one day! It’s not like the BBC to tell the truth?

This triggered a reaction.

Jaki and I are no good with bad weather, we can’t cope and I get that SAD thing by about mid November, so we decided to start planning our winter get away.

However, this is where Donald Rumsfeld comes in, because we not only have unknowns to deal with. We also have the unknowns we don’t even know about.

We just can’t plan anything too far in advance. We are hopeless, our lives are too volatile for that.

That’s why we lived together for over 40 years before we got married, we just couldn’t organise a date, because of the unknowns.

We want to go away in September this year and the plan was for Georgia, Frazer, Blake and the new baby Zaya to come out for a week and join us.

But they run their own business, have a new baby and Blake starts at toddlers in September. So getting them to commit to giving us a clear yes or no with a date has been impossible.

It is one of the unknowns.

This means we don’t know what accommodation we will need ( another unknown) how they will get from the airport to Mojacar with two kids and two baby seats and whether the shuttle bus is suitable for child seats. ( The unknown unknowns).

Our old landlord from last year has offered us the house again from the end of September and if it’s only Jaki and I that will be fine, if we want to go earlier, we can spend some time in France or Northern Spain but if the kids decide to come, we will have to make different arrangements and may have to find accommodation that is available in September.

All of which means we can’t book anything yet, so the cheap crossings will be gone, the cheap cabins will have been sold and we will yet again have to pay full whack.

At least though we will be able to afford a few medium size Pasties in Plymouth to keep the cost down!

Saintes to Carenas. Crossing the border.

28/02/23

The Hotel Kyriad in Saintes.

The hotel had a bar and a restaurant but it seemed to have been converted into a make shift nursery where a small baby was allowed to play, watched by his Dad who I think must have been related to Mme Golvet. Possibly her daughters husband or maybe he was the son? Either way it didn’t look like they were offering anything in the way of food or drinks, so we walked the short distance to La Romana an Italian restaurant where they at least had heating.

By now the temperature outside had dropped considerably and the ink black sky was dotted with stars. It promised to get very cold indeed.

We made the most of the restaurant. I had a Pizza (with a fried Egg) whilst Jaki chose Salmon with Pasta. A nice glass of red wine and underfloor heating, what more could we ask for ?

Our euphoria didn’t last.

When we got back to the Hotel the Kinder-garden was still in full swing.

None of the other guests (who all seemed to be workmen in fluorescent clothing) were anywhere to be seen. The bar was in total darkness and it was starting to get cold, even in the reception. So we went back to our room where the radiator was manfully trying to heat up the room but it was fighting a losing battle.

There was a kettle in the room and I had brought some decaf tea bags and some sweeteners so I decided to try and make tea. However there was no milk, so I went back across to reception (crossing the garden by the swimming pool) and roused a lady from the kitchen who provided me with a cup of milk which she generously said was ”free of Charge”.

Sadly when I got back to our room I realised there were no cups (only plastic glasses) so I either had to go back across to reception or abandon my quest and join Jaki under the sheets.

It was a no brainer.

However it was so cold (temp outside had dropped to minus 4º) so we climbed into bed fully clothed.

In the morning it was still cold but surprisingly we had both slept really well.

For all the Hotels faults and there were lots. (Mme Golvet was never gonna win the £1000 prize on “4 in a bed” the skirting boards were covered in muck and the end of the bedding had turned a lovely shade of Ochre) the bed was surprisingly comfortable.

When we were ready to leave the Windscreen on the Land Rover was iced up and it took a while to defrost. I hadn’t thought to bring an Ice scraper with me to Spain?

We then resumed our battle with the Sat Nav.

Although we had used our break wisely updating everything, setting the coordinates and ensured the settings were perfect, it still came up with a new challenge.

When I put my phone in the plastic holder it immediately fell off the windscreen and no amount of coaxing would get the rubber sucker to grip on the glass. It seems the sudden cold had some how changed the dynamics of friction and suction resulting in a sat nav holder that wouldn’t stay in place.

Who saw that coming ?

We decided to get some fuel at the commercial centre rather than use one of the petrol stations on the motorway where the price of Diesel per litre was up to €2.

Once the tank was full it was just a case of paying, which heralded a whole new set of challenges for Jaki, some of which she didn’t seem to have mastered by the end of the day.

The ‘automated payment booth’ was on her side ( by the french drivers window) so she leant out and inserted the pre payed card into the mouth of the machine. It immediately spat it back out, so she reinserted it again with the same outcome. She continued trying in various positions with no success. Then like a beach front Punch and Judy show, a little french face appeared at the window and said’.

“Thats the way to do it”. But in French!

It seems their ‘automatic’ ticketing also came with an attendant, just in case.

Jaki had inserted the card the wrong way round and once this was explained to her, it all went swimmingly.

Given all the shopping she has done in the past month, I had expected her to know how to use a credit card?

We found a Boulangerie Pattiserie where we ate a Danish and drank a relatively good coffee (even though it was in a paper cup) before leaving with a huge crusty bread roll stuffed with Ham and Goats Cheese, for later.

Back on the road it was a case of settling down to a long and relatively uneventful drive.

There were several routes available to us, two of which skirted round the Pyrenees at the top and bottom and two went up and over the top (one route was through Jaca where we had been on a previous trip).

Given the cold weather and all the snow that could be seen in the distance we didn’t want to risk driving up through the Mountains, so we decided to abandon our strategy of avoiding tolls and accept we would have to pay up.

Jaki had done a great deal of research and concluded the Toll Roads were almost unavoidable on this leg of the journey but, they did save us 4 hours driving time and were cost effective in terms of Diesel usage. So, on balance, they weren’t that much more expensive.

Our plan was to by pass Bordeaux and cross the French border into Spain at San Sebastian, then head south to Pamplona and on to Zaragoza where we would look for accommodation.

This leg of the journey took us through dozens of toll booth’s where we had to stop and pay a fee for using some of the best maintained and traffic free routes I’ve ever experienced anywhere.

Despite the fact we’ve used these booths countless times in the past, they always present a challenge.

As you approach them the Sat Nav (which we had managed to re-attach when we stopped for a break earlier, dont ask me how) gave us a warning and we could see the line of booths ahead.

Above each booth is a sign on a large gantry giving you information about each access point. Some, have a ‘t’ above, often lit in a green lights. Others had what I took to be an image of several credit cards and the third displayed a selection of coins.

We assumed this displayed the method of payment available in each booth, though In some cases we were offered the choice of all three (we never did get what the green ‘t’ meant, though Ive now done some research).

Télépéage

The toll payment method preferred by the autoroute operating companies is télépéage, payment by electronic transponder, signalled by a ‘t‘ logo over the toll gate. For this you need the transponder and a payment subscription account with the autoroute operating company—not practical unless you live in France or in a neighbouring European country.

If this is the only sign you see over a toll gate, you must pay the toll via télépéage.

We were using a pre paid card for all transactions ( the plan being we could see how much it had actually cost us).

The ideal scenario should have been:-

As we approached the booth, Jaki would prepare herself, check she had the right credit card, wind down the window, lean out and tap the card, retrieve the receipt and off we go.

Simples.

In reality, each booth seemed to take her by surprise.

We would stop, she would have a look of confusion on her face.

“What are we stoping for” written large across her forehead.

Then she would scrabble around to find her purse, retrieve the wrong credit card, open the window, stretch across and try to swipe the card, realise she couldn’t reach, wrestle with the seat belt (which always seemed to garrotte her leaving a red mark on her neck) before releasing the belt, opening the door and at last, paying the Toll.

Like Houdini during his apprenticeship she managed to untangle herself eventually.

Even ‘Pavlov’s Dogs’ learnt when it was meal time. Eventually !

Sadly paying the fees at a toll booth seemed to be a skill too far.

In her defence, there were some different procedures.

At some booth’s you paid in advance at others we took a ticket which was paid for later.

But the basic procedure was the same on all counts.

We drove for about 6 hours that day and as the sun was setting we decided to find a stop for the night.

Jaki suggested a small town called Carinena where there were several reasonable Hotels all in the rights price bracket.

We chose Casa Marzo which turned out to be a good choice.

It had plenty of parking, a nice bar and a restaurant though that never opened. Instead they served food in the bar, which was very popular.

When we checked in we didnt book with Bookings.com instead we just asked their rate which was €5 cheaper.

The guy behind the bar didn’t speak any English so we had a bit of fun trying to communicate but he saw the funny side and we were given a key and told that our room was on the right hand side of the Hotel. He gesticulated with his right arm to convince us that our room was definitely on the right, which was strange as it was actually on the left and although our room key said 101 we were actually in room 11?

So we spent a deal of time wandering around the right hand side of the Hotel looking for a room that didn’t actually exist.

The fun didn’t stop there.

When we got into our room it was clean, modern and comfortable but the shutters were down on the patio doors which made it very dark. We couldn’t get the doors to open, so we assumed there was a fault with the electronic switch. Much later we found out it wasn’t electric but manual and we had to pull a chord.

The heating was blown air and there were instructions provided which were intended to help guests work the system. Pity they weren’t printed in English though.

There was also a very strange control panel on the wall by the side of the bed but we never got to work out what that was for.

By this point we were ready for a beers so we set of down to the Bar where we grabbed a table and ordered our first Spanish Cerveza.

Whilst we drank our beers we had a look at the menu, which was all in Spanish.

There were some clues, such as Ternera which we thought was Veal and Jadinera which translates to garden or gardener, so we figured this might be Veal with Garden Vegetables but when we used google translate it made it sound much worse.

Ternera a La Jardinera came up as “Planters Beef”

Chuleta De Pavo (Cutlet of Turkey) was fine but when we added ‘Plancha’ (Iron) it made no sense. Iron Turkey Cutlets,?

The worst tasting meal on the menu was ‘Bandage Stew’ which we definitely wanted to avoid.

This passed an hour and had us giggling in the corner of the bar like school kids. But it was all to no avail. By the time we went down for dinner the menu had been amended and we had to start the whole thing again.

We both went for the Macaroni Carbonara as a starter and it was really good.

Then we settled on the Fighting Bull Stew (guess this is a by product of bull fighting) which was rich and tasty if a little salty ( the food is often salted quite heavily). Then I went for a pudding of some description which we shared. We were offered Coffee and I took a Decaf but by now Jaki had eaten and drunk her fill.

All this for €12 per person. Even with 5 glasses of wine the total bill was only €29 so a bargain.

By the time we got under the sheets we were happy little bunnies, ready for bed.

It was then that I realised I had left my medication in the car, so I got dressed and ventured out to the car in the cold darkness of the night.

On my return the key to the outside door wouldn’t work and I had to go in through the bar.

Luckily we didn’t go out for a late night stroll or we would have been sleeping in the car!

But hey, the joys of traveling.

Spain is calling. 6/2/23

Like a ball rolling down a hill, the momentum of our trip is gathering pace.

The deposit has been paid on this years rental and its good news. The owners suggested we pay the same rate as we did back in 2019. So its €450 for rent, €35 for wifi and what ever the electric and water rates are. We are planning on about €550 a month, all in, which is still €200 cheaper than we had expected to pay.

The next thing to do is book the Ferry crossing.

Unfortunately there is only one company that sails to Spain (Brittany Ferries) and they have a monopoly, so can dictate their prices which currently stands at about £600 for a one way crossing to Spain. (Why isn’t there any competition)?

This crossing is expensive but we would have paid it and taken it on the chin. However, when we looked closely at the sailing times, it is a two night trip. So for some bizarre reason this ferry takes two days to get to Spain and I dont know why.

In the past we have been fooled by Brittany Ferries and boarded the ship only to sit in the channel overnight (we could see the lights of Plymouth through the windows and they never moved).

Even that might be acceptable, though its a waste of time and extra expenses as you have to eat and drink for an extra 24 hours, but if the weather were to turn bad and we were stuck on the boat in a raging gale, it would be my worst nightmare.

So, we have decided to sail to France and drive down.

We booked a crossing from Portsmouth to St Malo at £286 including a 4 berth inside cabin. Departure is 2015hrs so we will need to be at the Port by 7pm which means leaving Bristol around 4 pm. most days this would be a nightmare as we would hit peak traffic when we get close to Portsmouth but this is a Sunday so there shouldn’t be too much Traffic.

We booked a 4 berth Cabin because it offers two beds at ground floor level.

it’s getting harder to get Jaki up into the top Bunk in a two bed cabin. In the past she has slept quite happily in the top bunk on an overnight sleeper train in Vietnam and the overnight train from Bangkok to Chang Mai. But our last sailing to Spain was a struggle especially getting out during the night to use the loo.

An inside two berth Cabin

It’s a long old run but, we are in the car and we aren’t towing anything, so we should be able to keep the speed up. We will stick to the West coast route through France which means we can avoid tolls and still make good time on good quality roads. It’s never as bad when you’re going, the excitement overcomes any obstacles but coming back, it can be a bit of a drag.

It will mean a couple of nights in a Hotel (well I’m hoping we can source some cheap Motels) but looking at the costings, it isn’t going to be much more expensive as the France crossing is much cheaper than the Spanish route.

Once the ferry has been booked we will have to book our insurance and that is always a bit of an expense especially as I have to identify some pre-existing conditions.

I have to list, SVT, high blood pressure (due to high cholesterol) and an enlarged Prostate.

Usually non of this add’s any serious cost to the insurance but you have to choose a company who are happy to insure older people with potential illnesses and that is always more expensive than the basic offering. ( SAGA never seem to be competitive).

Jaki is always fairly simple, she has ‘nothing to declare’ so her side of the deal is fairly cheap.

last year we booked Red Pennant insurance from the Caravan Club (one of the few advantages of being a member) which is a bit strange. They cover health and breakdown in the same policy.

Strangely they dont ask about pre-existing conditions, which is a bit worrying. I always feel there must be a catch or that I’ve failed to fill the form in correctly ?

But if its kosher, it comes in at about £315 which includes health cover for both Jaki and I plus breakdown insurance for the car. The breakdown cover only applies during the dates identified so your not covered in the Uk outside of those dates, some thing I didn’t realise last year. I was driving around thinking I was covered but I wasn’t.

Time is getting short and we will need to get moving and get things finalised.

I’ll keep you posted.

The Channel Tunnel.

The last bit of a journey can often be the hardest and that proved to be true for us. The sense of excitement has usually gone and its just a trudge to get back home.

We had stayed the night on an Aire in Mareuil-Sur-Ay so we had a three and a half hour journey to Calais, where we planned to get the Channel Tunnel across to Folkestone.

We booked a crossing on line but the price had gone up considerably since the first time we looked, some months ago and with Hind sight, it hasn’t been cost effective to drive up through France and get the Shuttle. It would have been cost neutral to drive to Santander and get the Ferry home. But what’s done is done and we have learnt some lessons.

We had booked a very early morning crossing, 0420 because we didn’t really know how long it would take us to get there (allowing for emergencies) and we didn’t want to arrive the other side just in time for all the commuter traffic, given we had to go around London, Gatwick etc.

So, we randomly chose this particular timing as it was the cheapest.

The drive to Calais was fairly typical. A bit boring and a bit expensive but fairly uneventful.

We didn’t really know what to expect when we got there having not driven this route before so we tried (or at least Jaki tried) to do some research in advance.
What we wanted was some information that told us where we could park up and wait for our departure. Could we do that in the actual compound. ( Like they do at the Ports. If you get there early there are areas designated for Motorhomes to wait).
If there was nowhere in the departure area, where was the nearest Aire?

We tried using the now infamous book ‘The Best Aires in France’ but that had nothing useful.

The nearest Aire was Number 8 ‘Escalles’ (page 85).

Rue Du Chateau D’Eau but at €16 a night this was as expensive as a normal campsite.

One that was recommended to us was ‘Watten’ (page 84) which was number 5 on the map (but strangely numbered 6 on the list below). However, when we googled this it was about an hours drive to the terminal and we felt that was just too far at 2 am in the morning.

Note how small the text is on the maps.

.

So, we decided just to drive directly to the Terminal and see what was there. If we could find some where to stop we would, but if it looked difficult or risky, we would drive back out again and find some where else.

Luckily on one of the emails we received from ‘Euro Tunnel, Le Shuttle’ they gave us the coordinates for the Tunnel which we were able to enter into the Sat-Nav though they used yet another system which meant we had now encountered three different ways of writing down the coordinates?

It was relatively easy getting to the site and as we drove in we could see the first set of barriers similar to the Toll Booths on the motorway. There were already long queues of vehicles at each booth and we didn’t want to get to the gate only to be told we couldn’t get in. It would have been difficult getting back out again as there was nowhere to turn around. So we drove off to the right of the gates, passed a Euro tunnel staff car park. Within a few metres we came to a T junction where we turned right because we could see a Lidl store and we knew we could park there for at least a few hours.

Jaki went into the store to buy some fresh bread and some stuff for sandwiches whilst I stayed in the Van. We turned on the gas and made Tea to go with our lunch and at that stage planned to stay in the car park until someone kicked us out.

I decided to have a look around the site to see if there were other motor homes parked anywhere else, which as it turned out, there weren’t. I did discover a large shopping precinct called Cite Europe which was a bit like any large modern shopping centre anywhere in Europe.

Along side it was a large Carrefour so there were plenty of places to spend more money.

Despite all the shopping opportunities there didn’t seem to be anywhere dedicated to Motorhome parking so I thought I would take a chance and call into the little office next to the entry Booths.

A very nice lady who spoke very good English advised that the best place to park was in the Staff Car Park next door. So we moved the van, set ourselves up for a long wait and tried as best we could to kill some time. However, the stream of traffic entering the compound had thinned out significantly and there were long periods where there were no cars (or Vans) at all so we wondered if some of the trains were running half full.

If so, would they allow us to get an earlier crossing?

NO queues

I walked back across to the Office, saw the same Lady, she took some details and went away to see what options were available. When she came back she said we could catch the 2 am Shuttle, but it would be an extra £94, which I declined.

As it started to get dark the flood lights came on and the whole area was bathed in a sickly yellow light. It reminded me of when I was a kid and we would peel the yellow transparent wrapping off a Bottle of ‘Lucosade’ then look at the world through it.

It was as bright as day but with that strange colour, everything seemed odd.

We managed to get a few hours of restless sleep but i was up before the alarm went off at 2 am and we had a last drink of tea before i switched off the gas.

I drove the few yards (it was literally 30 metres) to the first barrier where we stopped and showed our passports. We were given a sticker for the van windscreen with the number L3 on it and the lady muttered some thing about being an hour early.

There was some confusion about times. In some of the information they tell you not to arrive more than 2 hours before your crossing ( but no later than an hour before) but in the email they sent me it said 4 hours before.

We were a bit confused but that’s nothing new. We didn’t really understand where we had to go from there. There was no obvious route, there was no one directing traffic, no obvious signage, it was all very vague. So we drove across to a large building where we expected to find the duty free shopping the restaurants and Bars ( we assumed this was a 24/7 operation). Parked up and went in.

It was absolutely empty. Nothing was open, there wasn’t another living sole to be seen.

Spotting an information booth we asked what we were supposed to do and where we were supposed to go?

She looked at our paperwork and the magic L3 and informed us we should be boarding.

It seems they moved us forward 2 hours ( without charging £94) but hadn’t actually told us.

The lady in information gave us some random instructions about going out of here and turning “this way” (moving her left arm around but pointing right) then going toward a green light (the tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind were playing in my head) so we got back in the van and drove behind the building. There was a sign in French Grande-Bretagne so we headed that way.

In the dark it would have been difficult but in the fluorescent glow of the lights it was almost impossible to see clearly. there were shadows but they were distorted and fell at odd angles. The whole area in front of us was a Maze of red and white plastic cones. It was an obstacle course worthy of the old TV Game show “Its a Knockout”.

We drove round Islands of cones.

We drove down narrow lanes of cones.

We zig-zagged through a labyrinth of cones, hoping at every turn we were going in the right direction. Occasionally we were rewarded with a sign (Great Britain is this way) or a green light, but it was all hit and miss. After all these years, this was the best they could come up with?

Then we came to another barrier, another uniformed person asked for details, checked paperwork and then told us to pull over where three more uniforms checked the van inside and out, before we were waved off again.

Finally a couple of sleeping young men scrambled out of a little shed and asked to see our gas supply. They confirmed it was actually switched off and waved us on our way as they snuggled back down in their hut.

We found ourselves at the back of a small queue of vans and we obediently followed the van in front, down a slope, then fantastically into the side of a train carriage. We drove slowly along inside the bowels of this train carriage till the van in front stopped. I was told to get as close as possible, chocks were put under the wheels and as Jaki and I tried to get familiar with our new environment there was a strange vibration and we realised we were actually in motion. We had hardly got the hand brake on before we were off.

I didn’t like the motion, it could easily have made me sea sick but Jaki was more concerned with all that water that was now over our heads. I hadn’t thought about that?

Reassuringly I read a poster on the wall which gave us instructions in case of a Fire. The first instruction was quite clear.

“Start to Panic”.

As quickly as it started, the movement stopped and I could see through the small window in the side of the train we were actually out in the open and slowing down along side a platform.

Within minutes we were disembarking. There were some limited formalities and then we were away.

I stopped in a Garage still within the confines of the tunnel port and peeled the headlight dippers off as they would no longer be needed. They came off easily as the lights had warmed the glue, though i still have some stubborn rings to clean away.

Although the headlights stayed on for a while it was already getting light and it was rather beautiful seeing the sun come up, the mist in the dips and hollows and the way life was starting to wake up.

Then it was a case of heading for home. We hit our first road works within about 5 minutes which went on for 14 miles in a contraflow system.

By this time we had driven about 2600 miles and this was the first road works, tail back and contraflow we had encountered.

I hadn’t considered the route when we first thought of coming home via the Tunnel. Its a miserable route around the south of London, past Gatwick and then Heathrow but at that time of morning there was very little on the roads. What there was was HGV and there were plenty of them, making the most of the open road.

At least till 7am.

I wanted to get to the M4 before we stopped, then the worst traffic bottle necks would be behind us. When we did, we stopped for a ghastly cup of Coffee served by a very tired but friendly Barista in a services that looked dirty and just as tired. Not like the places were were used to in France.

We were home by about 7 am, parked the van and staggered through the front door.

Our little Bungalow looked huge, clean and modern. Not like I had remembered it at all.

The grass was about waist high but it was good to be home safe.

In summary it was a bad decision to drive back through France and to use the Tunnel.

It’s a great system and the actual crossing is a painless 35 minutes. But they just dont seem to be geared up to cope with campers and the after hours crossings seem to be an afterthought.

I wish we had stayed in Spain much longer. I was happy there. I had settled into a routine which suited.

France is a lovely country, very beautiful.

In future we will visit France and only France. That way we can, I hope, get used to its idiosyncrasies, its language ( i wont keep saying Hola to everyone) and its way of life, which I found strange and rather dogmatic after the laid back approach of Spain.

Crossing the Channel between Plymouth and Santander is easy. Its expensive but by the time we added up, Diesel, Tolls, Camp site fees, Food and drink plus the increased cost of the tunnel itself, there wasn’t a saving to be made and it was much more stressful.

We hope to go back to Spain in September, all things being equal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed following our adventures. I hope it’s inspired you to have a go.

You may not fancy driving a Campervan 2600 on foreign roads but, like my Sister, you may find getting about in Europe isn’t as hard as you imagined. No thanks to BREXIT.

So for a while our journey has come to an end.

My Fat Boys Breakfast Blog will pick up again now I’m home as will my waistline.

Take Care and thanks for flying with Bill and Jaki.

Just a Bridge too far!

Camping La Sousta. Pont du Gard.

Remoulins

This site was recommended to us by a friend and as it was roughly on our route home we decided to give it a try.

Its probably as good a site as we have found. It’s well looked after, has a lovely pool, a shop ( that’s actually open and sells stuff) plus a bar and Bistro.

30 minutes free Wifi each day ( makes no sense) but it’s a bit weak and my phone with data roaming works better.

Decent toilets, nice big shower cubicles with plenty of space for two. Last night a couple were in the next cubicle and he wasn’t scrubbing her back. Toilets without seats but designed to be so. Toilet paper, soap and s hand drier. Washing up water is a bit Luke warm.

Grey waste disposal seems to be only in one spot but Chemical toilet disposal is in each toilet block.

Fresh water points are around but difficult to find.

The laundry is well equipped but expensive. Two machines were €11.

Bike rental is available at €15 a day.

We drove into the centre of Remoulins a sleepy little village with what seemed like one main road on which there are the usual shops, bars and Restaurants, plus a Lidl to which I cycled to get some provisions. 

Sadly when I got there (Lidl) it looked like they had been rehearsing ‘Supermarket Sweep’ and were on ‘Take 205’. The place was a wreck. The produce was scattered around like it had been shaken by an earth quake. Lots of the shelve’s were empty and the few items I was searching for seemed to be missing.

As I left on my bike to get the few items we needed (mainly Tortilla Wraps for Supper) Jaki asked me to “See if they sold a certain wine as it was Vegan‘.

Well although they had almost nothing in the store, they did have row upon row of wine and they had plenty of this particular Vegan wine, which I reported back to head office, who seemed surprised I hadn’t bought up the entire stock!

Once we had driven through the village we crossed a bridge over the river Gardon (a tributary to the Rhone a bit further south) and took a right. Immediately we saw lots of inviting cycle paths and wished for the hundredth time Jakis bike hadn’t let us down as we knew this would be a great area to explore by bike.

At the gates to the camp site under an umbrella sat a very bored young lady who met us and explained that we should go to the reception, which was about 20 metres behind her and clearly visible. Why?

Anyway, we checked in with the lady who spoke excellent English, she gave us a map and explained we could park anywhere we wanted in the green (and I think, Blue) zones. 

Once we had found our plot we should come back, tell them which plot we had chosen and pay.

The site is unusual in that it consists of a lot of little clearings in a wood. Each pitch is like a cleared Glade. Surrounded by trees and bushes, which give some protection from the Sun, it means that every plot is unique and feels private, yet is only a few yards from its neighbours.

The problem with this site is that it offers so much choice and we just couldn’t decide where to stop. Like my tale of Los Vegas, just around the corner of the next bush, might be the perfect camp site.

Eventually we chose plot 221 as it was ‘A Sunny plot”. Some thing we would come to regret as the temperature on the afternoons reached 34º.

I set up camp whilst Jaki went back to reception but she couldnt pay as she only had my credit card and she didn’t know the PIN.

We were eager to explore the surroundings and soon found ourselves on the bank of the river where a small gravel beach was being enjoyed by families with Kids and dogs. The kids were splashing in the water but all the dogs were on leads.

It was extremely warm so we collected our swimming gear and headed for the pool which was empty at this stage.

We had some amusement with the automatic showers that come on when the gate is opened and soak anyone unprepared. 

A few hours spent on the sun bed and a couple of dips in the pool and we were ready for a beer. 

I’ll ignore the lost keys as Ive already told you about that in a previous blog.

We cooked outside in the cool evening air. As the light went we reconstructed our Table lamp using locally sourced materials that were 100% biodegradable.

We drank a bit too much wine due to the euphoria of being able to get into our Van. Watched another episode of Hand of God on Prime Video (well worth a watch) and hit the sack.

I woke up during the night extremely cold as we had left all the windows and vents wide open. 

Its very hot during the day but it gets cold during the night, A perfect combination.

The next day I cooked breakfast and as you may recall, nearly incinerated the Camper and all its contents before setting off to see Pont du Gard the famous Roman Aqueduct ( I suggest you read Pompeii by Robert Harris).

Now most of you will know I have an allergy to anythng Historic. I cant go into an old church without breaking out in a rash, castles, give me Hives and the very thought of going to Rome or Greece to see ruins fills me with dread, so this was a big deal for me.

I knew Jaki wanted to see it (she would walk round a pile of broken paving stones in Jewsons) so this was my attempt to make her happy. I know she has been telling stories on Face book about me moaning when we have to go out for a walk but she is exaggerating. I love a good walk me, as long as it doesn’t last more than 10 minutes.

We set off out of the camp site, Past the extremely bored ladyy under the umbrella and saw a sign to ‘Pont du Gard’ 200metres pointing to the right.

Jaki consulted Google maps which told us we went left, walked back into the village then came all the way back. Total time 55 minutes. She went to go in that direction till I threw myself on the floor and had a Paddy.

“I’m not walking 55 minutes to see a F*****g Bridge”!

Tantrum over I convinced her we didn’t want to walk that far and that was one way, then we would have to come back!

I decided we would go right, go down to the river bank and turn left. If needs be we could jump in the river and swim down to the bridge?

Luckily for me we didnt go very far before coming across a car park where Coaches could stop. Coaches bringing tourists to see the bridge. The Bridge that we could now see just a few yards up stream. With relief we crossed the car park (several Campers were parked there but for how long ?) and walked past the visitor centre.
We could now see the bridge in all its glory and it was mildly interesting. (Like looking at some ones collection of Bottle Tops).

We walked up to it and crossed the river under it, fascinated to se people had carved their names and messages in the stone, most in the 1800’s.

We took loads of Photos that no one will ever look at, then Jaki suggested an Ice cream and we sat outside the Public toilets sucking the cool cream out of a cone.

By now it was definitely Pool Time and we headed back, got our stuff and set ourselves down on a couple of sun beds for a lazy afternoon. I dozed most of the time whilst Jaki read. She has read more books since we have been away than she has in the last 10 years.

Eventually it was four o clock and as has become our custom, we returned to the van for a Cup of Tea. Sadly Jaki threw hers away.

Aparently it had ‘Too much Milk in it”. I had been adding extra milk since she returned a cup to me and asked for extra milk. I assumed that was how she liked it (after 40 years Im still learning) so had been adding extra to each cup It seems that was a Red herring and she doesn’t after al like her tea with extra Milk.

Well, who would have thought it!

She also asked me to cut her hair.

“Can you take an Inch off the back.” She asked.

“If I sit in the chair and hang my hair down the back all you have to do is cut it in a straight line”.

It seemed almost fool proof. Well, till I tried it.

No matter what I did there was always a length that I missed, How I dont know but she revisited Bills Barbers at least three time.

“Look you missed This bit”. She accused as she emerged from the bathroom clutching a lock of hair.

After my last attempt she looks a bit like Sinead O’Connor.

Then It was time for me to cycle into town and get a few bits for tea but I came back empty handed so we made d with what we had and as it turned out, we thoroughly enjoyed our Tikka Chicken.

I didn’t sleep well that night. 

The foam in the cushions of our bench seats has started to sag where it has had my continual weight on it over the last few months and it made my Hip hurt. I’m not sure how we overcome this unless we have some better quality cushions made using a better foam filling, but it does seem they aren’t fit for purpose if they have failed after such a short period of time. I’ve written to Elddis asking for comment but I doubt they will respond.

So today we plan to cycle into the village later when its cooled down, explore and get some last minute shopping, including a dozen bottles of the Vegan wine no doubt!

NB: Jaki has just shown me the weather forecast for June at home and its virtually non stop rain. Perhaps its not time to go home after all. I might have to stock up on T Bags!

Home time?

Travel after Brexit. May 2021

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I was reading a thread on Twitter about travel to France since Brexit and I thought it might be useful to share it with you.

I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information personally but, what home work I’ve done does seem to support this. Though I would hope each traveler will do their own detailed home work before setting off.

So, here is the thread, as written by James Barisic @jamesmb who lives in Bretagne.

RULES APPLYING TO BRITS VISITING FRANCE

There are rules for ‘third-country nationals’ which the UK now is, when visiting France and since we chose to impose Brexit restrictions on ourselves, this now applies to us.

These are not new rules.

They are standard rules.

So, dont be thinking this is them horrible Froggies trying to make it hard for us poor Brits, its not.

People from the UK will need to comply with these rules if they are planning to go on holiday to France.

I set these out here to help, though already people are getting angry with me and complaining, suggesting:

‘This can’t be right’.

The old argument:

“The French wont do that to us as they want our tourist to keep visiting.” Is being shouted loud and clear. Mainly by those that voted for Brexit.

But I heard that in Spain some years ago.

Ex-Pats who intended to vote for Brexit told me:

“The Spanish would never allow ‘Us Brits’ to be impaired as they (Spanish) rely on our spending money.”

Well it didn’t work then and I doubt it will work now?

Stories of people who have lived in Spain for years and are now having to come home have been in the Newspapers for weeks.

Extract from the Daily Mail on Brits being forced to return to the UK

So be prepared for delays at the border as you may be asked for the following information.

The reason for your stay.

In most cases this will be ‘Holiday’ and you will need to demonstrate that you have accommodation booked.

This for us will pose a problem as we usually depart the Ferry and set off South as soon as possible (bearing in mind that we will now be subject to additional checks so leaving the Port might take a lot longer than expected) we then look for accommodation when we start to get tired. So nothing is ever booked in advance.

In the absence of booked accommodation, travellers will have to prove they have sufficient funds (means of Living) to pay for their stay. The suggestion is that €120 per person is about the amount and this can be cash or cards. Though quite how they will establish the level of funding available on a card is a bit of a mystery?

Plus Insurance covering all medical, hospital and funeral expenses, which may be incurred during the entire period of your stay in France, inc medical repatriation costs;

However, this start’s to get a bit more complicated when we intend to stay with friends who have a house in ‘Pegairolles de L’Escalette’.

I am told a visit to stay with a friend will require a “attestation d’accueil” delivered by the “Mairie” (Mayor).

The ‘Accommodation Certificate’ or ‘Reception Certificate’. There seems to be slightly different terminology even on official websites?

This is the link to the relevant web site.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2191

Basically, if you are staying with friends, they will need to register you with the town hall of the commune that you will be staying in PRIOR TO ENTERING THE COUNTRY.

A foreigner, who wishes to go to France as a tourist staying less than 3 months, must present proof of accommodation. This document, called the reception certificate and is drawn up by the person who will welcome them at their home during their stay in France.

The request is made at the town hall. The certificate is issued if the host meets certain conditions.

The person housing you will need to provide a chunk of information (including proof of ownership of the property, proof of residence at the address, ID documents, proof of revenue, commit to supporting you financially if required and so on).

There is a 30€ fee for this.

The relevant town hall can take up to one month to respond.

The applicant will be issued with a certificate which they will then need to send to you (the guest) in order that you are able to enter the country.

By now, I’m sure the vein on many peoples heads will be pulsing and you will be desperate to tell me how wrong all this is and how unfair, if it is true.

But here is the thing. The British Government knew this when they completed the Brexit Negotiations and that might be one of the reasons why they didn’t want a second referendum?

France is (like Britain) a sovereign country and it can and does protects its borders even whilst it’s part of the EU (which seems to destroy one of the fundamental arguments for Brexit) and one of the reasons we Brits voted so enthusiastically for Brexit.

This may seem very brutal and Anti British but we have been doing our own bit to make travel by EU citizens difficult, not least arresting people who dont have the correct paperwork and holding them in detention centres.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/13/eu-citizens-arriving-in-uk-being-locked-up-and-expelled?__twitter_impression=true

We wanted to ‘Take back control of our Borders”.

Strangely the French are able to do that without leaving the EU?

So far I’ve dealt with France but I am advised that Spain has a similar requirement.

The Spanish have whats called “a Carta de Invitación”, which is available from the Policía Nacional. I am told by my Twitter buddy that it was 78€ last time he got one for a relative. They accept a credit (not debit) card as proof of means to support yourself.

It may be the same in Germany and possibly throughout the whole Schengen area?

So, is this the new reality, is this the new normal?

Well so far this has been confirmed as applying to British citizens (and other third party nationals) by:

The French Government

The French Embassy in London

The British Embassy in Paris

Though some people are saying it doesn’t apply.

In fact, my mate ‘Jamo’ contacted an Estate Agent in Spain who confirmed it was ; “A load of old Bollocks”.

And that might be the case. So, like all good investigative journalists (Laura Kuenssberg not included) I have done a bit of additional investigation.

I see you hiding there truth.

I wrote to the Spanish and French Embassies asking for clarification and if, and when I get a response, I will update you. I have also sent an e-mail to Simon Calder the Travel Journalist for the Guardian and we will see if he responds?

But here is the thing.

You may feel this information isn’t relevant and that it wont apply to you. But I urge you to do your home work before traveling just to be sure.

Dont hope for the best.

The one thing we know about Brexit is that the worst possible outcome is most likely to occur.

Ask the Fishermen of Cornwall.

Taking the long way home. 20th May 2019

Some Wag once said.

“Every journey, no matter how epic, starts with the first step.”

Well my friend, I can tell you that is complete hogwash.

Every journey, no mater how epic “ends with the last few feet” and that’s usually, in my experience the bit that is likely to go wrong.

Take today. It started out badly with both of us feeling unwell plus a 12 hour drive still ahead and it just got worse.

Last night (Sunday) we stayed at some strange road side Motel.

• 

The ‘AS Monreal del Campo’ was in the right place for the right money.

We chose it for convenience rather than anything else. But to be fair, it was clean and comfortable and had we had an appetite, there was a good selection of food available in the 24 hour restaurant.

For €36 it wasn’t too bad.

The place was open 24 hours so there was a bit of noise from down stairs, the odd door closing or some one taking the rubbish out but nothing really bothersome.

In fact I felt sorry for them and their guests having to put up with us. I was giving birth to Aliens most of the night and Jaki was composing the Score.

We were a very noisy Billy & Jaki.

• 

  Our room after a restless night.

• 

• 

  Sunset from the window

By this morning we had at least had a few hours sleep and my sore throat was manageable so we were a bit more optimistic.

We tried the breakfast special, Coffee, fresh squeezed Orange and some Toast (well bread that had at one time been on the same shelf as a toaster) but we just weren’t up for it.

Jaki managed most of her’s but my toast went in the bin.

At 0945 we set off and drove north toward Zaragoza then on to Pamplona, up through San Sebastion and then across the border into France .

• 

I was getting really tired so Jaki offered to do some driving and she handled it like a pro. She had never driven on the right hand side, had never used Cruise Control and the only time she had driven the Freelander before, she scraped it along a hedgerow and put a lovely scratch all along one side.

She did two stints at driving and both times she got the worst conditions, heavy traffic at Burgundy and heavy rain but I think she managed it really well and she is now capable of doing her share, which makes a long journey much simpler.

Whilst I was relaxing in the passenger seat I did some home work on finding a place to stay (Monday night) for the night and I thought I”d come up with a Doozey.

I decided as Brittany ferries was picking up the bill (up to €86) we would get some where nice.

I went on Bookings.com web site and introduced some filters. I insisted on free parking and a BATH, not a shower.

It came up with 14 options one of which ‘Campanile Saintes’ sounded perfect.

“An ideal stop over or short stay in Charentes offering comfortable modern accommodation, with a practical living space”. Said Bookings.com

It also had a BATH.

So when we stopped and swapped over driving positions I handed Jaki her phone with the relevant Bookings.com page open.

All she had to do was guide us in from junction 35. (keep going till the round about, turn left and it was on the right). Simples

So how come we left the A10 at junction 35 and were immediately faced with a dilemma.

There was a fork in the road.

Did we take the left one or the right?

Before we had time to discuss it further we were on the right hand road which then went on for 12 Kilometres without a turning point, it had a metal crash barrier all the way down it and not a single side turn.

I was not happy. We had covered 8-900 miles without a hitch but couldn’t manage the last few yards. (Remember what I said at the beginning)?

By the time we turned around and found the place there was some sort of protest activity in the car park outside reception.

It seems a full coach load of French geriatrics had arrived and were staying (at least over night) at our Hotel, more importantly they had booked every seat in the Restaurant so there was ‘no room at the Inn’ for these two travellers. We did go out for a walk but found nothing open.

We should have realised when we saw the age of the client group that the Bookings.com description of a ‘modern comfortable living space’ was always gonna be subjective.

The outside looks like a scout hut or one of those Nissen huts that ‘Dads Army’ guarded so vigorously. The last time I stayed in a place like this there were Red Coats around to entertain me.

• 

  Web site view

• 

  Our view

The inside, well I could describe it as quaint, cute, rustic, of a time and a place but its probably fair to say it was shabby and needed a complete renovation.

But, at least it had a Bath and I intended to fill it to the brim, wallow in scalding hot water till every bit of me tingled like ‘SR’.

Sorry wrong advert, but you get what I mean.

So I rushed into the Bath room only to find the bath was a miniature.

• 

  Bathroom on web site

• 

  Our bathroom

It was from a Dolls House!

It was about the same size as the galvanised bucket we used to use at my Grandparents house.

My old Gramps would lug this tub into the ‘front room’ stoke up the coal fire and boil gallons of water in a big metal kettle that he would struggle to carry from the kitchen and pour into the bath.

This bath was the size of a foot spa . An eye wash.

• 

  Apologies for the large redaction

But need’s must, so I filled it with hot water and plunged in, folding myself delicately to ensure as many body parts as possible were submerged.

I was a bit disappointed to see the plug had been secured to the waste pipe with a boot-lace but even that had given up the ghost.

• 

They did have a small single bar electric fire on the wall which was a nice touch and gave out enough heat to keep the bathroom toasty.

• 

There were two bath towels on a rack on the wall but they were both damp before we even used them. No hand towels and nothing to stand on.

Everything about the place was dated and it was all, very small.

I look forward to seeing wee Jimmy Krankie stay here next time they do Marigold Hotel.

• 

  Hidden light switches

Nowhere near as big and spacious as last nights lodgings and the room bear’s no resemblance to the pictures on Booking.com web site. There was no space between the beds, no bed side cabinets and the light switch was behind the pillows so when i turned over I managed to switch all the lights on.

• 

  Web site

• 

  Our room

• 

  The living space

There were some added attractions we just didn’t expect. The Refreshment area was a real treat with two paper cups, a plastic spoon and two sachets of Milk, a fridge (that turned out to be the pillow store) and the heating controls that looked complicated but didn’t work.

However, Jaki was hungry so we went into the reception and had a drink whilst we watched the bus tour tuck into their fixed menu.

We were found a small table and given a menu. It all looked good, very French. All written in French with no translations.

• 

  our view of Restaurant

• 

  Website View Of Restaurant

Jaki managed to decipher most of the items and decided to try the Tortellini but I really didn’t fancy anything so after much persuasion I opted for the Salad bar. €11.

Now this is where everyone shouts ‘Sour Grapes, your just being miserable” but my salad bar was the best option on the menu. The rest of it really didn’t appeal.

The salad looked interesting though there was a lot of stuff I didn’t recognise (like a Salmon Cake that I actually thought was a real cake until Jaki translated its label for me. I didn’t taste any Salmon whilst I was eating it) and a load of stuff I did that was nowhere near as good as the food we’ve been eating in Spain.

Look, there was lettuce, one type of lettuce which I think was’Chicory’ but it was actually wilted and I saw a lady pick it up, look at it and put it back.

There was a really good looking Flan with (Mozzarella) cheese on top but when I tasted it it was completely bland. Very disappointing.

Years ago my mate made a good living out of supplying quiches to cafes and bars and his tip was. “Never put any flavour in them, people don’t like it”.

The Tomatoes were the worst though. After those fantastic black tomatoes in Spain, these had no flavour at all.

But they did have a fabulous crushed chick pea mix that was fantastic, a great rustic Pate, it was like eating the inside of a Pork Pie and throwing away the crust.

There was some sliced cooked meats but they looked a bit dry and unappealing and there was a selection of French Cheeses which I’m sure would have been good but I just wasn’t hungry enough to try.

Unfortunately Jaki’s pasta dish came swimming in a milk soup that had no flavour and looked for all the world like they had spilt a pint of semi-skimmed into her dish and forgot to drain it. It looked and tasted awful.

• 

She battled on with it but in the end conceded defeat and left it.

The wine was good though. She tells me, and I can vouch for the Coca Cola which came in a real original glass bottle.

So at 13 minutes past ten, Jaki was in bed, I’m finished the blog before I forget all these exciting events and then I hoped we would have a full nights sleep.

Though in this place, anything could happen.

We’ve spent a fortune on a Hotel that should be done under trades descriptions.

We’ve eaten food that wouldn’t be tolerated in the most mediocre restaurant in Mojacar and were paying a King’s ransom for the privilege.

If only we hadn’t taken those last 10 steps from the car to reception or we’d taken more and gone next door which was €22 cheaper and looked more modern!

• 

  Refreshment area

• 

  Heating controls

• 

  Is it a Fridge.

• 

  Wall Light

• 

  Bar Area

Haven’t I been here before? 27/28 Feb 2019

I didn’t sleep particularly well last night, not that I woke up tired or that I was particularly restless, but I just couldn’t drop off. I wonder if my Decaf Coffee got mixed up with Jaki’s Caffeinated Coffee by mistake?

So I was up well before the alarm went off this morning.

There were a few complications that needed sorting so the extra time was useful.

Now I need your indulgence for a bit of pre-amble, a bit of wistful meandering to set the scene.

Life is often like a broken clock – It’s right at least twice a day.

So, things happen and you think to yourself. “This has happened before, didn’t I resolve it last time”?

Not the ‘DeJa Vu’ type happenings where some one walks through a door at exactly the same time with a Trilby on their head and a poached egg on each foot and you think. That exact same thing happened before.

I’m talking much more mundane than that.

I’m talking about when you forget where you put your wallet and you search the house from top to bottom getting in more and more of a lather, worrying about the ramifications of loosing your credit cards and your driving licence.

When at last you find it, you make a vow to be more careful next time and start putting the wallet away some where sensible. Then, the very next day, you do the same again.

That sort of thing.

So it is with traveling.

No matter how experienced a traveller you are, no matter how many times you’ve rowed up the Orinoco River, you still manage to leave the mosquito repellant in your tent.

Today was no exception.

Those of you who follow my Blog will know about the Love/Hate relationship I have with credit cards and banks.

Well, I also feel the same about Sat Nav.

I bloody hate them with a Passion.

They never work.

They only do the easy bits and when it comes to the hard stuff, they throw a ‘Hissy Fit’ and malfunction or run out of battery.

When your towing a Caravan its even worse. You need accurate guidance more, depend on it much more rigidly and when it lets you down, it does it far more maliciously.

Which is why I invested in ‘Co- Pilot’ a Sat Nav designed for Caravaners and Camper van drivers, It was recommended by one of the Caravan and Camping clubs as being the Dogs B*****k’s.

I can confirm the second bit of the description is accurate.

My rage at ‘Co Pilot’ is not limited to naming it Useless, the definition of which is:

“Not fulfilling or not expected to achieve the intended purpose or desired outcome.”

I would also include:

Futile, Nugatory, Hopeless, Ineffectual, Inefficacious, Impotent and even Sisyphean.

In fact, especially Sisyphean!

And here is why.

When we came to leave home, I found the App had been unloaded from my phone, because I had purchased an Apple I Phone 6 ‘S’ + The I phone designed especially for ‘Outer Space’. Mine has the minimum memory (16 GB) so once it had a few necessary Apps loaded, it’s out of space. (See what I did there)!

In order to free up space I suspended some apps that I wasn’t using very often,

Co Pilot being one.

It takes up a large chunk of the storage space and when your only going to the shops, it just isn’t justified.

It should have been a simple process to re-instate the App when needed.

However, the minute you want to do some thing ‘urgently’ the ‘Google God’ (like Jesus but in a pin striped suit) decides you need to reconnect with him, do some bonding, so demands you update the software.

It’s a bit like taking communion but without alcohol.

Anyone who has been down this route will know this is a disaster waiting to happen.

The inevitable consequences of ‘updating your software’ is that you immediately lose all your contact’s from your contact list and you have to re-submit all you password, 50% of which won’t now work as they have been mystically changed by the hand of the prophet.

So before we set off from the UK, I tried to reload maps back onto the Co Pilot App.

At this point I discovered there wasn’t enough storage space, so I had to delete some stuff.

I got a bit excited as I realised that during a previous Liturgy, God had some how loaded iTunes back on the phone with a good chunk of music and at least the first three chapters of ‘The life of Pi’ staring Richard Parker as the Tiger.

With that done, I was able to load the ‘French map’ (572.5 MB) and we were good to go on the first leg.

However, by the end of the second day we were close to the French/Spanish border so we needed to add a Spanish Map.

Strangely there is no stand alone map of Spain, it has to be loaded as part of Western Europe ( 2.64 GB) and this just wasn’t going to happen in a hurry.

Firstly the wifi at ‘Les Bruyeres’ Hotel, Dax, work’s at a snails pace and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there still wasn’t enough memory available.

Hotel room Les Bruyeres Hotel

Outside Les Bruyeres Hotel

The solution was simple. I would delete the UK Map (479.9 MB) and the French map (572.5 MB) which would give me an initial 1.05 GB of capacity.

Sadly this still wasn’t sufficient to load the Western European Map and further research in the ‘Holy Handbook of Google Help’ revealed like a prophecy the reason why.

You need double the required space to load a map, then once its loaded, the spare capacity is put back onto the phone as spare. This was a game changer.

I went through my mantras (Shit, B*****K’s, F**K, B*****D) three times and then realised to my utter amazement, the Almighty had also re-loaded tons of photos back into ‘My Photos.’

Once they were deleted and I had learnt how to remove ‘the cache’ from Google Chrome, I was the proud owner of 6 GB of spare capacity. I could now load the required map, well nearly.

It took so long using the Hotel Wifi that we had to leave before it was completed.

The only option was to try using ‘Google Maps’ as our Sat Nav.

Up until this point I wasn’t aware that Google maps was in Fact a ‘Retrospective Sat Nav’ in that it works in a slightly different way and takes some getting used to.

With a standard Sat Nav you approach a junction and the visual map warns you ‘you will be turning right in 500 metres’.

The voice might say: “ Take the next turning on the right.”

With a ‘retrospective sat nav’ it’s completely different.

The visual display doesn’t do anything but the voice says:

“Opp’s, you should have turned right back there”!

A you can imagine, this is a skill which I haven’t as yet mastered so we were desperate to get the Co Pilot back on track especially when we left the motorway at Teruel looking for a Hotel Jaki had found on Bookings.com. It was relatively cheap but had good reviews so we decided to seek it out.

Unfortunately it turned out to be the other side of Teruel so we had to drive through the centre of this non de script and forgettable town and out the other side.

By this time I was on sensory overload.

The dull monotonous voice of Co Pilot was joined by a ladies voice from Google maps which Jaki then repeated to me plus some how she had enlisted Bookings.com to talk us through getting to the Hotel. It was all too much and it resulted in too little.

The Hotel was in fact miles out of town in a run down area that had absolutely nothing going for it so we drove back onto the Auto route to Valencia and decided we would stop at the first services that had the little bed logo, that signifies a Hotel.

We actually found a great little Hotel called La Fonda de la Estacion just on the side of the motorway where we spent a very pleasant evening. (See Review on Google/Trip advisor) but for now let me tell you about the random Glove box trick.

Before we came away I spent an awful lot of money making sure the car was mechanically sound, so I was some what surprised when the Glove Compartment door decided to fall open at random intervals, hitting Jaki on her bad knee.

When I first bought the car this was one of the minor faults I identified and I thought they had fixed it, until now.

So we had to make some emergency repairs using that tried and tested method. Gaffer Tape. It aint pretty but it worked.

Then we come to the final Burr in my Burrito.

Another of my pet hates is ‘Road Tolls’ and the way they are seemingly impossible to fathom. They are completely inconsistent, the rate changes but doesn’t seem to relate to distance and after going through a few you don’t know whether your paying in advance or retrospectively.

The worst bit though is when you pay and then there are road works that slow you down to a crawl!

Last year when driving North we told the Sat Nav to avoid all Toll roads and it did that amicably. We made good time and saved some money, though its hard to quantify a negative in that we wont know how much we saved unless we knew how much we had spent.

This trip we allowed the Sat Nav to use Toll roads and we paid for them using the Halifax credit card, thus keeping an accurate record of what was spent, when and where. My ideal was to make a full list of the Tolls, the cost of fuel, the price of food etc and build an accurate account of the travel costs. That was working fine till we crossed the border into Spain.

At the very first Toll we tried using the credit card and it was ejected.

In desperation Jaki fed a €10 note into the machine but it wouldn’t take that either.

So, we reversed out of the booth (impossible if we were towing a caravan) and drove into the adjoining lane. Unfortunately the card and the paper money were refused yet again, so we resorted to tipping coins into the throat of the machine and trying to remember how much we’d spent.

We got to €10.90 and then it all went wrong. We lost count of how many Toll plaza’s we’d stopped at and we couldn’t remember how much we had spent. So our whole strategy went up in smoke and all I cant tell you with honesty:

There are a lot of toll roads on the journey South.

They are very expensive.

It is almost impossible to find them on Google Maps so I am unable to make a list and tell readers where they are and how much they charge.

Like much of the traveling experience it is a reality, I lived it but I couldn’t explain it to anyone.

Suffice to say, traveling is a steep learning curve, as Jaki is finding out.

She has learnt in the last few days that no matter how quietly you Fart, when your in a Car with other people, you cannot keep it a secret for very long.

Aint that the truth!

last leg Jaca to St Malo. 18th Dec 2018

When we got up at 6 on Tuesday morning we were stunned to see ‘frost’ on the windscreen and all the pavements were translucent white.

We hadn’t been subject to anything under 14º for month’s so this was a shock to the system.

When we checked out the lady at reception told us they had been expecting a ‘dump of snow’ for some time now, which would have made our stay some what fractious.

It took us almost 3 hours to drive from Jaca to Pau, climbing higher up into the mountains where the temperature dropped to minus four.

It was very beautiful. The mountains glistened with sun on the snow caps like elaborate cup cakes and the river which cascaded down the mountain, shadowing every turn in the road, slipped icily over rocks green with algae.

However, this route isn’t for those in a hurry. If you have a deadline, you definitely don’t want to be driving from Jaca to Pau!

The road twists and turns, narrows and yawls, and if your really unlucky you find yourself behind an ancient tractor or a farmer with several sea sick Pigs gawking from the back of his pick up truck.

The journey seemed endless.

Then, on the French side we started to descend (after passing through the Somport Tunnel. 8.6 kilometres of road through the mountain, it was the longest ever dug in the Pyrenees and was 6 years behind schedule) and we encountered our first ‘Monsieur Reginald Molehusband’.

I looked to find a link but it appears all copies of the Reginald Molehusband film have been lost. For those who don’t remember he was a guy who drove an Austin 1100 and couldn’t park it properly.

In a beat up old Renault sat this bloke with a beret balanced on his head like a turd, a fag hanging out of his mouth and a Jack Russel sat on his lap doing the steering he pootled along at about 15 kilometres per hour completely unaware that we needed to get home.

We met plenty of these in the next hour and we came to realise that anyone wearing a beret whilst driving a car would be ‘beret slow indeed.’ (See what I did there)?

Once we had passed Pau we headed toward Bordeaux where we were please to join a decent road (even if it was a Toll) with a speed limit of 130 KPH.

We set the cruise control and sat there for the next few hours only stopping when we needed diesel( which was very expensive particularly in the motorway services) or we needed to pee.

We bought food and drinks when we stopped but drank them whist traveling to save time. Some of the coffee was pretty strong and I didn’t enjoy it but it kept me awake and alert.

One of the tricks we learnt to make long journeys more bearable was to record audio books and then play them whilst driving. So we listened to John Rebus, Flesh Market Close as we ploughed north.

The roads were relatively empty, there were few HGV’s and those that we did encounter didn’t do that ting where they try to overtake another lorry, then get stuck in the overtaking lane because they don’t have sufficient speed to get past.

Even with two lanes progress was much quicker, easier and less stressful than driving at home and the only traffic jams we encountered on the whole route were between Portsmouth and Southampton where it was nose to tail for 8 miles.

This rather tedious process continued well into the afternoon.

At around 4 pm the sun was getting low in the sky and it was starting to get dark.

By the time we got to Rennes it was almost dark and our lights were on permanently. I had feared that the road from there to St Malo would be narrow and winding with lots of commuter traffic heading out of the big city but my fear proved wrong and we maintained a fairly constant 120 KPH, till we got into St Malo itself.

I hadn’t expected it to be so big so I hadn’t entered the port details into the sat-nav so it tried to take us into the town centre which we knew to be the wrong way. We turned around but found ourselves traveling back out of St Malo on the same road we’d just come in on.

We needed to turn around again but in the dark we couldn’t find a slip road that would carry us over the dual carriage way and put us back on the other side.

So we stopped and reset the sat-nav with the correct details of the Port and hoped I would find its way, which it eventually did.

On route we saw signs for a big Carrefour and as we hadn’t managed to buy the amount of wine we’d planned to bring home we decided to stop and stock up though we had an hour at best.

We found parking more difficult than we had imagined, perhaps because we were tired and under some pressure to get in and get out quickly.

When we went inside we realised this was a vast building and the Carrefour supermarket was only a part of the complex, with other shops and restaurants sharing the space. It took some valuable time to find the supermarket entrance and then there were no trolley’s.

When we asked at the information desk they told us the trollies were ‘outside’.

The thought of finding our way back out again was almost the straw that broke the camel but then we spotted some smaller plastic trolleys so we grabbed two of these and headed off in the general direction of wine. (Jaki has a third sense about these things, she can track down a bottle at 60 paces).

We didn’t have the luxury of being able to browse the rows of wine, instead we went for bulk, humping 4 huge boxes of wine into our trolleys along with a few assorted bottles and some miniatures which we planned to drink on board the ferry.

Then it was a mad dash to the Port which, as it turned out was the other side of town.

There was a certain amount of relief when we found ourselves in line 10 of the queue and we were very soon parking on level 5 stairwell C.

We carried our bags up to our room which was a two berth job with a pull down bunk that required a small metal ladder to access. It seemed very small but it had everything we would need for and overnight crossing.

We brought our own pillows but the top bunk had a gap between the head of the bed and the wall just big enough for the pillows to slip through, so although Jaki started with two, she ended up with one. By the morning the other had slipped through the gap and fallen onto my face.

Exploring the ship we stopped in the bar for a quick drink, Jaki bought one just to get a glass then opened one of the small bottles from Carrefour but hunger soon got the better of us so we went in search of the cafeteria.

There was a set two course meal for £12 from which I chose the Lamb Curry and rice (which tasted like Lamb stew and rice) whilst Jaki had Beef Stew which looked like Lamb curry but tasted like Beef Stew.

It filled a hole though I have to say it was pretty ordinary given this is a French ship with a French crew.

The crossing took about 12 hours which seems odd as it is usually a 6 hour trip.

Looking out of the window we could see lights but they were hardly (if at all) moving so I think the ship had come to a stop. Later I tweeted Brittany Ferries and asked why they set sail and then anchored up just outside the port (on the Plymouth-Santander they do this for about 10 hours) and they said it was for ‘Customers Comfort’. If they crossed directly at 8pm they would arrive in Portsmouth at about 2 in the morning and apparently customers don’t want to disembark at that time.

Once we’d finished we were exhausted ( having taken travel sickness tablets when we first got on board can often make you tired) so we went back to our rooms where we squeezed one last drop out of the toothpaste tube before climbing (In Jaki’s case, literally) into bed.

I had the luxury of a light by the side of my bed so I could read ( I have a Kindle but Ive finished the Shetland Series by Anne Cleeve and I cant find anything new that catches my imagination) my book.

It wasn’t long before I could hear Jaki snoring so opened a fresh pack of ear plugs, inserted and switched out the light.

I must have stumbled to the loo at some stage during the night (which is why I’m on the bottom bunk) but I don’t think I was awake for the experience.

The next thing I remember jaki was waking me up to ask what time it was.

A simple question but one that caused some confusion as the clock in the room said 7 am whilst our mobile phones said eight. Given Spain is an hour ahead that seemed perfectly reasonable.

However, we had expected the mobiles to automatically change to British time so if they were correct, the clock was an hour slow. If the clock was right, we should already be docking. It was all terribly confusing but there was very little noise coming from the ship and there had been no tannoy warning of our imminent arrival so we went back to sleep for another hour.

Showering in the tiny little cubicle was an interesting experience especially as the hose that fed the shower head with water was split and shot a jet of water out through the gap in the curtains and all over my clean clothing.

A quick Coffee in the cafe set us up though neither of us had any appetite.

Once we had docked we made our way to the car and sat quietly in anticipation of the doors opening and that first crack of light filtering through.

Then we were off, keeping to the left (which I always find more difficult that changing to the right) we followed the queue of traffic through customs and then having shown our Passports (European probably for the last time) we found ourselves in the Portsmouth commuter traffic.

For the first time in three days we were in a traffic jam that lasted way past Southampton. The fumes and pollution of thousands of cars obscured the tail lights and created a very surreal environment after the clean air and open space of France and Spain.

Two hours later we arrived home. The Bungalow looked good and the new lawn I had seeded before I went away was now established and showed signs of having been mowed. Lots of the plants were over and the dead and dyeing Stalks were crying out to be cut back. The whole garden will need a winter tidy before we go back to Spain in March but at least everything had survived and in some cases (like the crab apple with its bright red fruits) were looking very Christmassy.

Unloading the car seemed to take ages and the following days were spent washing Ironing and storing stuff away.

We slept for an hour or two then about 6pm Georgia came home from work and we caught condensing three months of activity into a few sentences. (She refuses to read the Blog so knows nothing of what has gone on).

We tried to book a meal at the local pub but it was fully booked serving Christmas meals at £25 a head.

So We had a quick pint (we couldn’t afford a Gin & Tonic, at least not one with enough Gin in it to taste remotely like our Spanish Tipple) and picked up a Chinese Take away.

After three days of traveling, clocking up1400 miles we were eventually home safe and sound. Drinking a pint of Cider (Blackthorn not that ghastly stuff they sell in Spain) and eating good old English food, well a Chinese.

Georgia and Frazer flew to Sri Lanka on the 15^th and I spent that Saturday in my mates shop as he was down with Flu.

Welcome Home folks!

Only 72 days till we go back.

Camping Du Poulquer. Benodet. France 11th June 2014

http://www.campingdupoulquer.com

We got another 300+ Kilometres under our belts but I was starting to fade so we abandoned our plan of reaching St Pol-de-Leon and instead headed for Benodet.

When we got into the village the Sat-Nav indicated the site was a few yards further on and seeing a sign for a campsite we pulled in to find the reception closed. We decided to go down to the Sea front which we could see wasn’t very far away and as we did we realised the Sat-Nav still wanted us to carry on another 50 metres.

We then spotted another site on our left and it was this one we had chosen from the ACSI book.

We checked in and were allocated a really nice, big plot within easy reach of all the facilities yet it was quiet and secluded enough to feel comfortable and with the ACSI Discount it was €16 including electricity and free wifi.

It was extremely hot despite the forecasts of rain and cloud we had been given by various on line weather stations, so we headed for the outdoor pool which we shared with one other couple for most of the afternoon.

Later families started to turn up but by then we were ready to leave.

We took a walk down to the front and followed a footpath along the coast, admiring the views out across the Atlantic and the beautiful houses set back from the road which had this fantastic vista from their balconies and windows.

We did a spot of ‘Rock pooling’ before heading off to find a glass of wine though the only place we passed was a restaurant with no customers, so we hoped the site bar might be open. Sadly it wasn’t.

So, back at the van we opened a cold French white wine from the fridge and both agreed it was horrible. We then opened a French red which Jaki liked and I didn’t but then I found a bottle of Spanish red which suited me fine.

Later we cooked steak on the BBQ , tinned dauphinoise potatoes in cream ( is that the right spelling, sorry) and tinned green beans. It was delicious.

On our way to the washing up point loaded with pots and pans we heard some music coming from a camper and stopped to listen. The English couple invited us to have a drink with them and we spent a great hour chatting. They were both retired bank managers, her HSBO, him LLoyds/TSB, though they assured us they were ‘Old School’ and got out before Banking became so toxic.

This morning when we woke up at 10am to a lovely sunny day so we rushed down to reception and booked another night, and I’m glad we did.

We set out on the bikes and followed the road to the right this time, past the Beach and on to the Harbour before picking up a cycle path that followed the estuary in land. The Harbour was full of boats and Mullet that left a jet stream of sandy water behind them as they swam up from the bottom. They were everywhere.

A local Lady who was fishing said they weren’t good to eat so I guess they are left alone, which might explain their numbers and size.

This is an extremely pretty area though perhaps not the best we’ve seen as it’s a bit modern, slightly clinical with plenty of holiday accommodation. But the other side of the estuary looks like the best of Devon or Dorset, there’s just a lot more of it.

It’s well worth a visit.

On the way back Jaki found a ‘Fixer Upper’ for about €150,000 in an Estate Agents Window and started dreaming about how I could live here whilst the renovations took place and she would come out to visit during school holidays?

We stopped at the Beach for a swim and the water was extremely bracing. This is not the ‘Med’ by any stretch though we ended up going in three or four times. It got easier each time.

Whilst we were there the Local Lifeboat crew put to sea in what we think was a training exercise involving a helicopter which lowered a crew member into the sea to collect something which they then had to place on the lifeboat deck. They did this maybe ten times and it was rather scary to see how low the chopper was to the water. Big boys toys?

i would love to be winched down on one of those lines.

Getting a bit hot and sun burnt we went back to the van and cooked a tin of Castelane stew , local sausage stew with Pork fat, though I added a few dried chillies for ‘Flavor’ which took Jaki by surprise when it hit her mouth a Ulcer!

Now were Chilling.

This evening the first match of the World Cup is being shown in the bar and though I suspect there are very few Brazilians here, they are expecting a crowd.

I’m rather looking forward to it even though it takes me one step closer to going home.

Some thing I really dread.