Leaving France, Rivers, Fish and mountains

So Poissons or we thought Fish, a small and on the whole uneventful village not far from our campsite and the first proper village we went through on our way to Germany. Why we all wondered, Ford, River, Field I understand/get, I still struggle with Upper and Lower Slaughter, but Fish there is a river in there somewhere. OK there could have been a pond, but we missed it. I suppose this is a case of lost in translation.

Following our sat nav and the quieter roads we headed east and south, from France towards Germany and Lindau on the Bodenzee. As we travelled onward the architecture of the houses changed, A more alpine style of house prevailed with steep roofs. The Vosges mountains came towards us reminding us of their volcanic past and adverts for overpriced mineral water. The road flattened out, on of the highlights being a flock of storks in a field feeding. I would like to say that the girls were fascinated and pressed their noses to the window to see the spectacle unfold as we passed by. Grunts of “Yes Dad”, general indifference was fairly typical, well I suppose when you have to compete with Sonic the Hedgehog you are not on to a good thing. However both myself and my wife were impressed.

Following the D424 we came to the Rhine just after Markolshiem. As we passed a low slung hydro electric plant we crossed a bridge and found ourselves passing a picnic area, well there was a table and a couple of benches. We pulled over ate our lunch, more bread and ham and cheese, watching the traffic trundle by. I would like to rhapsodise about the place and tell you lots of interesting things, but there is nothing really to tell. It was a place between. So we got in the car and followed the road around and over the bridge into Germany.

I did try to explain the significance of the Rhine in the history of Europe, how it was the longest river in Western Europe and it represented a cultural and political border for over 2000 years. Both children looked up from their DS’s and condescended to provide their father with a look of, well, Dad is trying to tell us something, again, before returning to their true love. My wife smiled knowingly and drove on.

In France I have a general idea of what is going on, my schoolboy French is augmented by all those times it has been my emergency language, before resorting to pencil and paper or waving my hands in the air or maybe both at the same time.

Although I will admit to gaining a CSE grade 4 in German at school, thank you Mrs Hannan

I knew the difference, once we had passed the sign telling us that we were in a different country, the road changed, and he surroundings changed somehow it was different. Not like the change between England and France where there is and immediate change, here it was subtler but it was still different.

This was another country altogether this was Germany

A Holiday part 3 Stars and Snails

The problem with drinking beer, I have found as I get that bit older is that it goes and sits in my bladder waiting until the most inconvenient time to begin to carry out it escape plan. So I wake up and it is still dark and I need to go, no choice. I clamber out of bed and the sleeping compartment, zips are just not just not good when you are trying to creep around. The realisation of the distance to the toilet block, making itself known inside my brain. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a t shirt unzipped the front door emerged and stopped. It had stopped raining and the sky had cleared and the whole of the sky was full of stars. It was beautiful. The Milky Way arched overhead there was no moon and very little other light, just stars. I found the Plough and Cassiopeia and various other constellations and then a meteorite flashed across the sky, it could have been a dying satellite but I don’t care.

I did consider waking the family up and dragging them out to see this, well for a brief moment at least, but decided against it. Then the reason for my conscious state reasserted itself and I headed off down the path.

The following morning as I sat with my wife eating breakfast, very fresh bread and cheese and ham and coffee, I tried to work out what was different, the food was good, I could go on for minutes about breakfast alfresco with fresh bread and good coffee. The company was good, my wife and I even after 13 years and two children seem to like each other and with minimal effort make each other laugh. I suppose it was the site of my youngest daughter wandering off to the shower, following her absent minded sister. She is 9 and I still worry when she goes down to the shops all of 150 yards down the road. Here my first thought was, did she take the toothpaste and my second was, is there any more coffee. Maslow eat your heart out. This was a place where not only did I feel comfortable with my children “wandering off” to explore, but also and perhaps more importantly my wife was calm about it, well, she was pouring the coffee for herself and after some deliberation me.

As I wandered around the site, with its mix of caravans and tents, there were so many children, playing or just being. There adults on the whole keeping a very watching brief as the mixed and match. I took the girls swimming in the small indoor pool, well they swam and splashed and I tried to float gently in the corner. There were no attendants or life guards, we were responsible for ourselves and I was happy and calm. The campers a mix of British, French, German, Dutch, probably the majority and a smattering of other nationalities, were relaxed and at ease. I suppose it is the transient nature of these places that mean the there is no real time to get cross.

On our final night we ventured down to the site restaurant, a starter was Escargot, something I had never had, and I knew my children had never had the pleasure. The fourth member, being a vegetarian for over 25 years and we needed someone needed to be the designated (insert your own reasonably pejorative term here) in case of over kill. Inspired by Horrid Henry, if you don’t know, its not that important, we settled down to wait. After for me 2 beers and coke and fanta for the girls a small bowl arrived containing a green tinge concoction. Using the long forks that came, I went first, finding and skewering a snail and popped it into my mouth. I tasted garlic first, I like garlic, I chewed a bit and then swallowed. Hiding my sense of relief, I flicked a glance at my two children, “that was OK whose first". Unfortunately the panic in their eyes I hoped to see, failed to materialise and they both dived in and with little if any fanfare popped a garlic coated mollusc into their mouths. So that was it, no drama as we polished off the rest of the dish. They both wandered off to “ play” and I ordered more beer. My wife, stopped reading her book, long enough to peer over her glasses with distain and the world carried on. So another “adventure” ticked off.

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.

A holiday part one

So I came back this writing stuff down lark. It has been a while and I have been withdrawn, from most things really just getting by, not moving out of the comfort zone. So I did need to stop and think, five possibly six months further on and the world is to all intents and purposes the same as it was before only different.

A holiday is a good place to begin, camping abroad, seemed like a good idea at the time

I have not been camping properly since my childhood, apart from one night under canvas in a field in Scotland, but that is another adventure.

Our children, both pre-teen in age and high in attitude and chutzpah, are doing languages at school, the youngest French, the other German. It could have been worse, Japanese was a possibility. They could both practice on some other than us, their dutiful parents.

So onward, we left Birmingham at the ungodly hour of 5:00am taking breakfast with us and following the motorway, south, and increasingly east as we headed past London and towards Dover. We had aimed to be in Dover by 11:00am aiming for a 12:30 ferry factoring in delays, toilet breaks and traffic. Much to my surprise we arrived at the P and O check in at 10:05. Ok so we would have to wait, walk around, breath in the sea air and maybe even buy very expensive refreshments. No chance, “you’re on the 10:30 ferry” she breezed. “ Go to lane 212, thank you” and that was it . We drove down and within 10 mins we were being wedged on to the ferry. We were the last last vehicle on. As we climbed out of the car the doors were shutting behind us and the note of the engines was rising. We climbed the stairs to the lounge found a table and some seats and sat, in a way bewildered at the turn of events. Ok that probably last for maybe 5 possibly even 10 seconds before the universal call of the child in a new place crossed the table. “Mum, I need the toilet” brought reality crashing back in. So once toilets had been found and visited, we got an overpriced drink and sandwich. I suppose it is what to be expected. This was our holiday and to be honest I did not mind. The crossing, flat and uneventful , passed by and we soon found ourselves back in the car and venturing into another country, France and a whole new way of doing things.

Disembarking in Calais brought with it the first major trial of our holiday, and I failed at the first attempt. So driving on the other side of the road is easy, turning left or right is all wrong. At the first opportunity I turned left directly into oncoming traffic. Yes it was only one car and it was a long way off and the knowing look he gave me as he drove past after my rapid reverse and return to the beginning, It scared the ******** out of me and gave me that nagging doubt in my own judgement that just lurked in the back of my head for days afterward. Probably a good thing that kept me on the straight and narrow for several days.

Following instructions from our sat nav we journeyed south towards our overnight stop. Our two children had resumed their position in the back watching DVDs or their DSs. They were quiet and seemed reasonably happy.

Having given over our route to our sat nav we dutifully followed its instructions to come off the Peage and venture onto country lanes which gradually got smaller and smaller, until we found ourselves on a single track road with tall hedges on either side and no passing places. For us there was no oncoming traffic or tractor to follow.

There were mutterings from behind me that a break was needed, and we entered a small village with a railway station, whose name totally escapes me. There, sitting on the bend in the road just after the level crossing was a café. A “French” café, it almost jumped out and said, “STOP, yes, this is what you have been looking for”. So we obliged and did a late lunch. So it transpired that the owner was English who has come to find themselves and their “Art”, but until then they were providing hungry tourists and maybe even locals with a pit stop. Daughter No 1 took one look at the menu and turned her nose up. What do you do with an aspiring vegetarian whose only real experience of cheese is limited to Sainsbury Mild Cheddar.

Fortunately, we managed to get something that appealed to all palettes and a visit to the toilet we headed south towards Abbeville and our campsite.

A mix of chalets, caravans and tents around a core of permanent facilities, swimming pool, restaurant etc. we had a caravan for our first night. I found the shop, before it closed, and pulling from the compartment marked, “use occasionally in emergencies” I dragged my store of French kicking and screaming into the cold light of day and realised just how rusty it was. I managed with lots of help to be polite to the girl behind the till and ordered some bread for the morning. We then slowly collapsed as the length of the day slowly got to us all. A meal of fresh (ish) pasta with a tomato and mascarpone sauce and fresh bread. Yes I know pasta is from Italy (even from China) but my children will eat it and so will I. I washed up as my wife and children played, they were happy.

From memory the morning arrived bright and clear. After a going to collect our bread we sat down to breakfast. I had forgotten about freshly baked bread, still warm. Some butter, bousin and ham and I was gone. The girls stuck with what they knew, Cocopops and milk. I could have happily stayed put and indulged for the rest of the morning, perhaps even the rest of the day. Unfortunately we needed to move. Our next destination lay several hundred km to the east and we had to leave the site by 10:00am. So with a full but happy stomach we headed off eastwards.