Rasbro's Ramblings May 2015

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Early May saw us sampling more wineries in the France Passion scheme and of course buying a few bottles to keep our supplies stocked up. The Haut Languedoc is another beautiful region of France with rolling hills, forested valleys and pretty riverside aires to spend the night. There were lots of geocaches to be found and ancient priories to be explored; we even stayed the night at one in the car park as it was an FP site. We also spent an exhausting day in Pezenas for a large antique fair which spread along several of the old town streets with at least a couple of hundred dealers. The goods ranged from rubbish to high end so there was lots to see and a few things to buy. I have a weakness for old French linen so quite a few pieces made their way into the nether regions of the motorhome for shipping back to Oz.

From here we did a quick crossing of Provence to spend some time working our way north through the Alps. Our aim was to find moderate walks that Brian could enjoy but that also gave me the challenge I still needed. And we did manage to find quite a few especially in the southern Vercors and the stupendously rugged Ecrins national park. We were also blessed with warm sunny weather for the first half of the month which also meant a significant reduction in snow at the higher altitudes. However, some high passes were still not open as we found out when we wished to go over Col du Glandon (closed) so we took the equally spectacular Col de Croix Fer over into the Maurienne valley instead. This was after spending the night by a lake on a high pasture with nothing but the marmottes for company.

After farewelling the Alps we pottered around the Bourgogne region for a few days. One beautiful town we discovered was Cluny where we had a great walk to find 17 geocaches, a great lunch at the Cheval Blanc auberge then watched a showjumping competition before exploring the old town and abbey. We finished the day at the beautifully remote Domain d’Echellette tasting wines and enjoying sunset over the vines.

Paris was to be the venue for my birthday weekend and it did not disappoint. I finally got to visit the Louvre and ticked off all the big items: Mona Lisa; Venus de Milo; Winged Victory and the Bonaparte apartments plus lots of lovely paintings and statuary. You could spend a week in this place and still not see everything but after 2 hours we were exhausted. We covered many kilometres strolling the streets, browsing shops and antique centres and just soaking in the atmosphere and the sights of Paris in late spring weather.

And so all things eventually end and our sojourn in Europe for 2015 was just about over as by late May we were back at the coast enjoying one last meal of moules and frites before crossing the Chunnel to England.

Back in England we were fortunate to attend a performance of the Excel Theatre School and enjoy the delights of watching nearly 200 youngsters ranging in age from about 5 to 15 put on a musical extravaganza. Our young cousin Eleanor was in 6 of the numbers and excelled in the tap and dance routines. In fact she was one of the star performers constantly exuding great stage presence, timing and talent!

From there it was north and east to drop off our refillable gas system to a buyer in Norfolk then to catch up with good friends David and Janice in the Thetford Forest before heading to Lincoln and Newark for some big antique fairs. Lincoln was a little rainy and windy with a disappointing number of stalls but Newark was as good as ever. Not that we got much chance to buy anything as there was a mob of Japanese buyers constantly just ahead of us snapping up everything in sight! We also spent a day at the Hemswell antique centre which is massive but still could not get away from the Japanese contingent as it seemed like every second item had a sold sticker on it for the Shoji company. Don't know how they would fit this stuff into their tiny paper houses!

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