Home to the UK from Calais via the Chunnel and then that boring drive up the busy English motorways to Staffordshire. Always a pleasant surprise to find home just as we left it, though the garden has turned from Spring to Summer in our absence and is full of poppies. Then the boring bit. Emptying the Tandy of all food, clothes and everything else we carry with us. Sort the washing, put away the wine, open the mail, open my Folksy JoysofGlass shop. All back to normal. A very busy couple of months ahead. First of all have to get Bob checked out, as per hospital instructions, to find out why he got the infection and ensure there is no serious underlying cause. Doctor’s visit to be booked asap. Most important and exciting happening of the ... read more

Annoying start to the day when I was charged €2.15 for a baguette and a croissant by the campsite. Never, ever paid more than €2 before for this order as a standard baguette is €0.85. Naughty campsite. Also not good that they have no grey waste disposal on site and informed us we would find a motorhome service point in every village where could pay €1.50 to use that. Cheeky. Slowly working our way up to Calais. Taking it easy and spreading the drive over several days and not using motorways and especially toll roads. Clarissa Tomtom has expressly been forbidden to use peages. Bob tries hard to find us new routes each time to get up and down the country but getting harder now as we have travelled France quite widely. Sometimes we drive through ... read more

Setting of Northwards in earnest today. Only one night stops on the way from now on. Once the Tandy was packed up and as the campsite bar wifi has an excellent (and free) signal, I took the laptop down there and managed to spend a few precious minutes on Skype with Jenny in Australia. Cannot imagine what it must have been like for mothers 100+ years ago, when their children went off to the other side of the world, knowing they would not see or hear from them again for months or more probably years. We only had a 4-hour (haha !) drive so Bob said we were not in a rush but as it turned out, it was 6.30pm before we arrived at our overnight stopping spot. This was almost entirely my fault. As well ... read more

First normal day for ages or it seems like it. Got up, packed up the Tandy and got on our way by 9.30. Had to do a good clean round the food cupboards as kept finding little ants. Not a lot but even one can make me itch and two can quickly make a crowd. We have enjoyed this absolutely excellent campsite and this part of the coast very much so a shame our enjoyment was interrupted by the Toulon diversion ! Very pleased though that Bob is feeling much better. We are keeping a close check on his temperature and medication as absolutely determined not to need any more hospital visits this trip. We didn’t have a long drive today – just up into the hills away from the coast and up to Gordes which ... read more

Bob feeling much better when he woke, temperature down thanks to antibiotics, and enema had worked. The staff here are great. They seem to enjoy having the novelty of an “English Patient” (isn’t that a film?) so they can try out their English on us. The lady who came to change the bed was really interesting and spoke perfect English as she had worked for a while in the US. Previously a sport’s instructor, she had had a bad accident in the mountains and while in intensive care had decided to become a nurse. We are impressed by how well the room has been cleaned. Breakfast was brought for both of us but not 5* variety – throw away bowl of coffee or tea plus bread roll and butter. Doctor appeared at 10am and decided Bob ... read more