Category: Europe

So, it’s time for Dora to get her summer airing and finish off the “Tour de France” Geordie style.  Eurotunnel and the trek down to Langres – thankfully uneventful if not a long drive.

After last years fiasco of the midnight tree swinging, the caravan was pitched so that nothing was hitting, bumping or resting on it.  Although, we did have the conversation through gritted teeth of who knows best how to level it…however once the cold beers come out of the fridge you really don’t mind if the thing is on a slight slope.

A couple of days sightseeing and it’s about time for a chill so off to the pool we go, we did notice that there weren’t very many children around and guessed when we got to the pool that was because it looks like the slide is taking them straight down and into the oncoming traffic.  After a good couple of hours sunshine and the breeze is starting to pick up I was just about to say “shall we make a move” when a fly away sun umbrella heads Richards way – what do you do? – quick where’s the phone this will be hilarious if it hits him! – Damn it! Caught just in time.

Now I’m not sure why anyone would feel this is necessary but Richard decided to take off his trunks (remember in France it’s all about the speedos) before going back to the van, so there we are standing with a towel wrapped around him as he changes – its only when we get back to the caravan that he realizes he doesn’t have them…time to trace your steps back to the pool.  On his return, without the said Speedos, he’s convinced someone must have stolen them…of course some Frenchman wants a wet, slightly over stretched worn pair – it’s bloody windy, they’ve blown away!   Now it was at this point when chuckling away to myself about the flying umbrella and now the flying speedos that my face felt a bit tight and I realized that in my amusement about the slide taking away any unwanted children that I’d forgotten to put suntan lotion on my face – I looked like I’d had a chemical peel with a white line around my chin where the suntan lotion finished and my new face started… I think you call that Instant Karma.

On leaving Langres, we kept our eyes peeled for Richards flying Speedos just in case they were hanging from a tree or stuck on top of someone else’s Motorhome wing mirror.

Alas no luck, a new pair in Annecy it is then.

After a slightly more eventful journey to Annecy when ‘super sat nav’ wanted to take us through the tiniest of car parks onto a single track lane, it’s at this point I’m glad Richard does most of the town driving with Dora, we eventually make it to the campsite.

Caravan level – tick

Beers in fridge – tick

Speedos – tick

Taking a bike ride into Annecy sounds idyllic, or it would be if it wasn’t 37 degrees of full sunshine, 22 miles and no padded pants.  A Greggs pasty had nothing on what my bits looked like by the time we got back…lets take the car tomorrow.

So off to Menthon St Bernard (where the Saint & the dog are from) – gorgeous castle that looks like its balanced in the clouds.  Now here’s where my “but why?” & “that’s complete crap” comes from where religion is concerned.  When touring the castle, in the library there’s a carving (yes all very beautiful) above the fireplace which was meant to depict the story of St. Bernard, here’s the brief story of the first 5 carvings…

He wants to go into religion…his father says no…so he is locked up in a tower…he jumps out of the tower…is caught mid-air by another Saint…he then preaches in churches for many years & becomes a saint himself, he then starts to build many churches and, on the side, looks after mountaineers & people driving!

The guide then proceeds to say “the last 4 carvings we don’t talk about as we don’t think that they are true” What???? So, jumping out of the window and being caught by someone flying passed makes sense?  You see…complete crap.

Then…he said it was St. Nicholas that caught him, it took all of my effort (and Richards eyes staring at me) not to blurt out “So Santa saved him? – just as well he jumped out on December 24^th otherwise he would have been buggered then!”

Taking a leaf out of St. Bernards book we tried the jumping into mid-air thing ourselves – alas no sleigh and reindeer to save us just a French man strapped to my back with a parachute.

So we’ve had another 5 red hot days around Lake Annecy and Dora the caravan has been basking in the French sunshine so what do you not want when you open the door to the bathroom? The hatch to the toilet hasn’t been closed (not me I might add) and the smell of 5 days of what is now boiling piss is wafting through the caravan like an Ambi-pur plug in air freshener not to mention to two floating turds which are adding to the aroma…Ahhh the joys of caravanning!

 

Well it’s touring time again and off to the South of France in our new “Dora the Explorer” caravan, bought so that the soundtrack of the trip wouldn’t be Richard shouting “For F**ks Sake” every time he bashed his knees or toes on cupboards or the corner of the bed.  So, Dora is 8 inches wider and 1 metre longer…Thats never going to cause any problems is it???

Onto the ferry to St. Malo, only a 12 hour crossing but its unbelievable how much crap entertainment they can manage to squeeze into one short evening.  Firstly, the singer in her obligatory spangly top and fake leather trousers whooping and cheering herself along encouraging the audience to do any actions to match her songs and only succeeding with one small child hyper on coke sliding on his knees across the dance floor…someone please just throw me overboard now!

Then the magician…where do I start? after prizing two volunteers from the audience (I say that in the loosest sense of the word) he starts his card trick, counting 10 cards into the first ones hand and the same number into the second one, except for the fact it was blatantly obvious that he’d taken 3 cards from the first pile and put them in the other.  He then spent the next 10 minutes pretending to magically & invisibly transport them from one person to the other…low and behold at the end of the painful arm waving there was 13 in one pile and 7 in the other!  Now this has nothing to do with my brief past life as Debbie McGee (I was more guinea pig than magicians assistant) that I could work it out, even the man at the back of the room with the Labrador could see what was going on.  Time to call it a night!

And so off to St. Malo, a beautiful walled city where, like a lot of France, there is very little English spoken (oh how I wish my French for beginners course hadn’t been cancelled) so the trusty French phrasebook it is, sneakily taking a glance at it when Richard’s not looking.  So when the waiter arrived after our meal I could blurt out “excuse moi monsieur l’addition s’il vous plait” to get the reply “oui Madame” very quickly followed by Richard saying “where the hell did that come from?”  How smug do I feel?…it didn’t last long.

As we leave St. Malo for the long trip to Narbonne its mainly motorways, toll booths and rest stops (imagine the distance from Scotland to Brighton).  Now, being stuck in the middle lane of the motorway with an extra wide van is no picnic and squeezing through the toll booths must have been too much for my “not so” bilingual brain because when we were stuck there, as the toll ticket kept spitting itself back out at me, I had to press the assistance button. The voice from the concrete post said “Allo” and the words “sprechen sie Deutsch?” came out of my mouth! I just took one look at Richard he was shaking his head in disbelief saying “you know, sometimes it’s like I’m with someone from Mensa and other times its Forrest Gump!”  I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended by the comment…I’m going with flattered…I like Forrest Gump!

Eventually arriving at Narbonne and now the extra long caravan is the challenge, its ok I’ll tuck it right in beside the bushes and under the tree…not such a wise decision as it happens.

12.45am – I was awoken from a lovely dream by an almighty clatter which sounded like someone breaking into the caravan, I had a quick look through the van in my bleary “no glasses” eyes then peered outside to see the seats and table all blown over, so time to get up, fold everything up and pop it under Dora for safe keeping…that will be fine now.  Oh no, for the next hour I slept with my hands over my ears with the most irritating noise so 2.15am, Richards awake and we’re taking the awning down (I might add this is the first time he’d woken up!).  It must have been that squeaking on the side of the van…Great all sorted now.  Alas not…2.45am after realising that it was actually the tree I’d oh so carefully squeezed the van under earlier that day that is banging on the roof I’m out again, wedged between the bushes hanging from a branch trying to bend it away from the caravan so that I can at least get a few hours sleep whilst Rip Van Winkle is peacefully oblivious to the goings on outside…All sorted!

And so to Martigues, a day of non-stop sunshine so off to the pool we go (just as a side note in France lots of places insist on “proper” swimwear for men – so it’s budgie smugglers as far as the eye can see) after a while I wonder where Richard has gone to – he has a habit of wandering – then I see him, head bobbing and hands waving to his music wandering around the pool, ahh bless him, then it dawns on me if he’s waving his hands where’s the Ipod?  just as he turns around and I see it wedged in the crack of his arse!  That’ll be the dettol wipes out when we get back then!

Oh great, the gale force wind is back – but not ones to let it put us off, we’re staying put at the pool, that is until I see Richards shoes fly past me, followed by his glasses, followed by his hat, followed by a small child on a lilo (I am serious) it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages, it was like a really bad version of the Generation Game.  I’m allowed to laugh it only landed on the concrete its not like it flew over the fence and down the cliff! I so wish I’d been quicker to get a picture.

Maybe time to move onto somewhere less windy…

Au revoir for now

Well off with the caravan again, starting with a journey down to Portsmouth to get a ferry to Santander. We stopped a Winchester and had a couple of miles walk to the local pub, half way I’m sure that Richard had wished he’d taken the car as the conversation turned to “why are cows udders called udders and not boobs because they are just like a human on all fours?” and “how big are the slugs here!” (humongous!). All I could think of was, I have to walk back on this road in the pitch black in my flip flops and I’ll puke if I stand on one of those mothers! Much to his delight we reach the pub just as the pensioners coach trip does too, where there’s food involved these buggers move fast. Making our way through the lavender scented grannies & zimmer frames we nearly did score for a free carvery until I heard Richard saying, “No, I’m not with the coach party!”. You’ll be pleased to know that the pitch-black walk home was uneventful with no soggy slugs between the toes.

Next day off to the ferry and we scored for another “saga” bonus with free Sangria, their cabins weren’t ready so to avoid irrate pensioners with waving walking sticks best option was to give them alcohol & it seemed to work. Whilst wandering the ship we come across the dog park – how good is this? a little area where all the dogs can play, make other doggie friends and shite. That’s when I started to change my mind as little ruffus, who had diarrhoea, then needed it washed out of the way with a hose, just as I was passing with coffees the wind blew a little stronger – this is the second time within the last 6 months that I’ve had to dodge flying shit.

Off the ferry to Noja, a beautiful peaceful site on the beach, or so we thought. We pitch the van on what we later realize was the corner of Spanish Sesame St & “Shut the F**K up”. Needless to say, it is now going to be a flying visit with only time for a short trip into Bilboa. Oh joy, Bilboa the most confusing city to drive around – if in doubt keep going around the roundabout. It certainly was a flying visit as we realized we’d parked in the epicenter of the forthcoming “Tour de Spain cycle race” and by forthcoming I mean if you don’t move the car in 3 hours you’re here for the night. So chasing the police cordons we got out just in time. Plan B, let’s have a more relaxing time in San Sebastian, campsite chosen, sat nav programmed, off we go and then the words you never want to hear (especially when towing a 25ft caravan) where the hell it this thing taking us? We’re on our way up a single-track steep road, then I saw a sign for roundabout ahead – “it’ll be fine there’s a roundabout at the top I tell Richard”. Roundabout…really…it was the size of a bin lid with ditches either side. So I got out to direct or rather shouting “Stop” and then just closing my eyes as the edge of the wheels were heading towards the ditches. I’m not entirely sure how Richard turned it around but he did.

Onwards & upwards, literally…another single track lane and up half a mountain, I did say, “after the day we’ve had even if it’s a shit tip we’re staying” it wasn’t and we did.

Lets go for a relaxing coffee in San Sebastian, on our way we wondered why a car with flashing lights was right behind us (no it wasn’t the police, something worse…the bloody Tour de Spain escort car). Here we were in the centre of it all again except this time we were just stopped in the middle of the road with police tape around us. Seriously if I see another B**tard bike with a man in shitting lycra…OMMMMMM.

Next day…no bikes…no lycra…no roundabouts…off to Pamplona.

Gorgeous day, gorgeous city, then the trip home “no problem I’ll drive back” & the Sat Nav strikes again – this time lets take you all the way to the top of the mountain to bring you all the way back down to the campsite. This couldn’t even be classed as a single-track road, it was a garden path with a sheer drop on my side and bushes on the other. Needless to say every branch, bramble and tree bashed Richard the entire way down.

A lovely trip up the west coast of France travelling through Biarittz , the most pretentious place I think I’ve been to. There are 3 types of people there (excluding the surfers). Those who have money, the ones with the glossy cardboard shopping bags at 9.30 in the morning, Those who want to give the impression they have money – wearing their pearls, weird coloured trousers and look like they are smelling a fart & US – picking out the “money / no money people”. Biarittz is beautiful but you have to be too dressed and put too much make up on too early in the morning for me.

Off to Bordeaux & Arcachon & to the Dune du Pyla a 100 metre high sand dune, in parts as steep as an Olympic ski jump. All very nice until Richard decided the best way to get back down it was to slide on your backside. I wondered why nobody else was doing it as I was at the bottom emptying the ½ kilo of sand out of my ass!

Next stop La Rochelle & Ile du Rey – we’ve found our island of retirement, unfortunately we’d have to sell the house, cars & my mother to afford half a garage…back to Plan A (ish).

Next port of call, Les Sables D’Olonne lets not even start with the Sat Nav again. So on a little bike ride into the town, its only 6kms (even the map got it wrong) it was 6 miles each way and then another 6 to the beach where “toe gate” strikes again, thankfully not broken this time. So by the time we got back to the site I was nursing scuffed and bruised toes and a flattened foof, there’s something to be said for padded pants…note to self…pack them next time!

And then comes “Richards day of shit”…

Following the mother of all thunder storms, we thought we’d air the van and go for a coffee, then the heavens opened again, thinking nothing of it we got back to the van and realized all those windows we’d left open now had little puddles under them. So out came the duvet, mats and towels and they were hung over every available tree branch and chair and then there it was…Richard procession of Shite. Across the mat, up the steps, on the chairs and trainers. So hose out and start cleaning no matter where he was you could smell it, so he might as well as empty our loo too, so off he goes like a dejected trolley dolly pulling his cabin bag of crap. On his return, sitting back in the van those words are uttered “why can I still smell shit?”…that would be the shitty toilet paper stuck to your leg! “seriously?…get out of the van!”

Then I saw it, wedged between my toes…my own little packet of shite.

No, of course I didn’t tell him, as he was now standing outside stripped down to his swimming trunks with freshly hosed feet. “I’ll just pop to the loo and we’ll go to the pool as the sun has come out “ I said.

All is well again in Walsh’s World.