9. May, 2016

9. May, 2016

WEDNESDAY 04-05-16

Having gone to bed so early we were up in time for a wander around the Cite Europe complex before the Carrefour supermarket opened at 09:00. This was handy as during the walk we came across the Carrefour petrol station, long sought out in the past but never found (GPS: N50.9361 E1.806589).

After scooting around Carrefour to get some last minute food bits, it was round to the filling station to top up with diesel at about eighty-five  pence a litre, then parking over the dump station and shedding all of our waste water and most of our 'flat lemonade tasting ' fresh water.

Our route was Rouen/Everoux/Chartres/Orleans/Muides-sur-Loire. We had used this route a couple of times before, but not in this direction.

My word it was far busier across country than we had ever experienced before which added to our driving time. We only had one dodgy moment enroute when, on a dual carriageway, I was overtaking a dark coloured Mercedes with matching driver. Whilst overtaking him a sign informed me that my outer lane was coming to an end up ahead reducing the road back to single carriageway. So whilst I had my foot down overtaking the Merc, its driver must have also seen the sign and decided that there was no way he was going to sit behind a motorhome, or Camping Car as they call them over here, so he puts his foot down, so now we're both accelerating towards the narrowing road. By the time we reached the single carriageway he was driving on the hard shoulder.

Now in my former working life driving big white things with blue lights on, he would have had two choices, firstly brake and yield to me since he should not have accelerated whilst being overtaken, or secondly, take a short flight from the road to the field below the embankment on our right. But as I couldn't risk any damage to ourselves or the vehicle I braked hard enough to allow him to get in front of me. It broke my heart to do so.

On arrival at the Municipal campground here at Muides-sur-Loire (GPS: N47.673313º E1.527666º) The Chef went to book us in for a couple of nights whilst I dumped the rest of our fresh water and partly refilled the tank. Hopefully this will taste better. "Bad news" she informs me on her return. "It's Ascension Day tomorrow, it's a National Holiday, and there's some kind of event happening here all day. He did tell me what it was but I didn't recognise the word he used". Soon afterwards we realised that we had lots of guidebooks onboard but no French dictionary. Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see what the event is tomorrow.

We grabbed a space to pitch right at the edge of the campground with just a wide strip of public grass between us and the River Loire. We were well away from everyone else, the theory being that whatever was happening tomorrow, being on the edge of things we may escape the worst of it.

A fresh salad eaten alfresco and washed down with a drop or two of Rosé wine was a fitting end to a busy day. The weather was glorious but after a while it got a bit chilly and so we went indoors and had an early night.

9. May, 2016

9. May, 2016

9. May, 2016

TUESDAY 03-05-16

My original plan was to leave home about 1630 heading for Dover and our 2205 ferry sailing, hopefully riding in on the back of the rush hour traffic. This morning I chickened out and decided to leave about 1400 and try and get as close to Dover as I could before the worst of the rush hour then pull in to one of the very few Services on the M20 to kill time before we needed to check in. This decision had The Chef in a spin as she then had less time available to get the chores done. I think most women are the same. She likes to clean right through the house before going away so that should we be burgled, the villains won't think badly of us. There can surely be no greater humiliation than getting a bad review on www.villainsreviews.com especially regarding the tidiness of your home just before they ransack it.

My main task before leaving was to drain and flush out the 100ltr fresh water tank as well as the boiler. I had earlier used a diluted solution of  citric acid powder (like lemon juice in white snorting powder form) to both purify the tank and de-scale the boiler. Draining this out, flushing out the tanks, then refilling with fresh water was quite a time consuming business.

We got away about 1430 which wasn't too bad, it paid off because the journey down there went very well indeed, especially the M25............ well that is until we missed the planned rest area, Folkestone, I assume it must be a new one as I've never noticed it before. I overshot the turning for it, so that now put our next stop as Dover, way too early for our sailing. Never mind, we have in the past met helpful staff at check-in who have let us join our queue early or put us on an earlier ferry.

Dover was the busiest I have ever seen it, not with holiday makers in cars, but with HGV's, hundreds of them four lanes wide at some points, all in the process of checking in. Doing our best to follow the signage, we ended up in the DFDS very, I mean very, slow moving queue for check-in. I told Rosina not to worry, we hadn't seen any other signs to follow, so because there are so few cars sailing  at the  moment perhaps all the operators are sharing one check-in desk. Half an hour later we reached the front of the queue to be asked "You're sailing with P&O yeah?" before being hit by the bombshell that it wasn't a shared desk and he gave us a silly cartoon owl tag to hang in the window allowing us to go all the way round the circuit again, having been  advised that the P&O check-in was on the far left, through four solid lanes of HGV's, obviously on our first circuit the vehicles had hidden the signage. We had better luck on our second circuit as there were gaps on the HGV lines and were able to see where we needed to go.

Only one passenger was booking in ahead of us, what a result, this would be a quick check-in having endured the DFDS Seaways queue.

I pulled up at the window to be snarled at by a female 'operative'. They say that dog owners end up looking like their pets, well if this woman has a dog it's is an overweight Basset hound.

"You're very early - too early to book in, you don't have a Flexi-ticket, you'll have to either leave the site and come back later or pay £60 to go on an earlier sailing". After a heated discussion in the cab I elected to pay £60 to go on an earlier sailing. From now on we'll be using the Channel Tunnel. We've used it with a car before and it is by far the most civilised way to make the crossing. I've yet to use it with the motorhome as they are quite rightly strict about the LPG cylinders onboard and they check that you have turned them off. Well I used to do so on these ferries but now leave one on as it powers the fridge/freezer unit which is always stuffed full of food before a trip. Granted some could argue that I am increasing  the risk to life and limb, but probably no more than a forty ton tanker full of chemicals or coach loads of French who ate garlic for lunch.

After loading on to the 1835 ferry we were met on the main deck by hundreds of French schoolchild. Young excited, noisy little things. Still there would have been something to worry about had they all sat there quietly behaving themselves for the 90 minute crossing. So once again The Chef and I crossed the English Channel without hearing a word of English spoken.

Once over on the French side we made our way to the Citi Europe shopping complex (GPS: N50.932880º E1.811049º) where we parked up much earlier than originally expected and prepared for an early night. I'd seen no sign whatsoever of illegal immigrants looking to hijack a lift to the UK, which was a shame as I wanted to ask them what battery they use in their mobile phones. Mine needs charging every couple of days and yet these folk seem to walk across the whole of Europe with enough battery power to update their Facebook page, text home, and place a bet with their bookies back home.

Rosina made a nice hot drink which tasted rather odd. Oh dear I thought, looks as if I hadn't flushed all of the citric acid out of the system. Soon I was cleaning my teeth and rinsing out my mouth - yup, there was the taste of citric acid.

Tomorrow will be a 'working' day where we'll need to rack up some 300 miles to get to the Loire Valley, the beginning of the area  we want to be. So what with the clock-change we'd not only lost sixty pounds but an hour as well, oh well ............... there's always tomorrow.