A Holiday Part two, Into France

Part two of our adventure started on Saturday morning, we empty our stuff out of the caravan and into the car again "fit and ready" for the journey.

We head east, away from the Atlantic coast and across Northern France towards the Joinville in the Haut Marne following the E14 and E17. Four and a half hours the sat. nav. said. No chance.

So driving on the wrong side of the road is a little more interesting than at home. The sat nav tells you what to do and 9 times out of 10 I do it. I always have this vague sense of unease, because the traffic is in the “wrong place” the anticipation of what is going to happen next is just slightly out. The shape or angle of a car as it approaches a junction is different, its like learning to drive all over again and I don’t like it.

This leg of our journey introduced us to one of the key things about France and may be even he French. Nothing is done by halves, if you are going to do it, just do it. The roads we travelled are long and on the whole straight slicing through the landscape I suppose a very Roman approach. At various points the TGV line passed by, no local nimby raising objections at the public enquiry here. The weather reflected this, when it rained, well we understood the monsoon and then the sun came out and the temperature rocketed and the windows that had barely kept out the rain opened to let in the draft.

The UK has one to be honest fairly irrelevant toll motorway, I have been on it once and that was by mistake. France has a whole network of Peage and at they are seemingly well maintained with regular services, but also places to stop with benches and a toilet block and no one trying to sell me things all the time . Have you been to the new services on the M40 at junction 10? Just to get to the toilet is like walking through the Bullring.

We made our way across northern France and I would like to describe excitement and spectacular views but I cannot. It is on the whole flat and boring. It was the number of windmills on the landscape that struck both of us especially compared to England where they are few and on whole far between.

Driving that day was monotonous, keeping at about 70 mph the children sat in the back reading, playing on the DS’s, and watching Scooby Doo DVDs. We stopped a couple of time for petrol and toilet and coffee breaks, I read my book while Joy drove .

After what seemed like forever, the land began to rise and different crops appeared, fields of sunflowers, their heads heavy with seed began to appear. We left the Peage and headed onto smaller single carriage way roads, though still our sat nav seemed to take us away from major towns or built up areas, once we even saw deer by the side of the road.

Finally we made it to Joinville, and then on to our campsite just a few miles up the road, 8 hours including stops was not bad. We checked in to the site and were led up to our tent by a great couple who gave us both the sense that everything would be fine.

Our tent, was well a tent , bigger that the ones we had played in as children, but not vast. There was a room with single beds for the girls and a space with a double bed for us parents. Beyond that there was a space for generally sitting and cooking and eating inside. It was a tent. This was to be our base for the next 5 days.

I began to unload the car, and the rain returned, within seconds I was wet, very wet. It was one of those, oh why have we done this moments. This was the lowest point, the rose tinted memories of childhood shattered to reveal cold, and wet, adult reality. 2 weeks close up, in the rain with no escape. At this point I knew I could sulk or this could be an adventure, my / our adventure and I should just get on with it. There was no blinding flash or other sigh of approval, the rain kept falling, but gently eased off stopping as I closed the now empty top box.

So having unloaded the car I gallantly volunteered to go and find the shop to get some bread and well anything really, I just needed a chance to walk around and explore. As a penance I did have to take both daughters with me. We quickly found the toilet block, what is it about girls and toilets?., Further down the hill there was a lake and a what looked like an old Mill Race. Where the mill had been was now an indoor swimming pool and above it play centre for children . The lake and the stream that drained it were close to overflowing reflecting the rain that had fallen that day. In addition to finding the Shop we also found a restaurant and a take away Pizza place.

So we got some bread and ordered some for the morning also Ham and cheese, milk and wine and beer. We had brought coco pops with us. That night we had take away pizza in a tent as them monsoon returned and hammer down.. The girls had got the best deal on bed space and I eventually crawled in to bed next to my wife and listened to the rain fall.