France 102 - Mareuil , the countdown begins - stop, wait , dont react , we are on our way, Cabbage Lane . a broken bridge and a problem at Calais

---

The countdown has well and truly begin. It is Friday. A whole two weeks to go before we depart for a months holiday taking in France and Spain. 14 sleeps to go. Mum used to say Patience is a Virtue . One of those proverbs I hated when I was a child as she drummed them into me. I can still remember them as if yesterday. Now, though they ring true. I can see the point of them and I feel saddened that they are no longer used as part of our language. Our heritage seems stripped away without them and the language devoid of colour. 14 sleeps seems as if it is closer to the holiday than a fortnight away. Fortnight - another word replaced by the more regular use of two weeks. I know which I prefer and as long as I can I will keep it alive.

It is time for "things to be done" before the holiday. Feet pampered. What can be nicer than a pedicure before your holiday? My feet are ready for anything the holiday throws at them. Hair cut. My hair is now short enough to keep me cool in the heat of a late French and Spanish summer. Our weather has turned. It feels Autumnal today with rain falling and mist clinging until lunchtime. The lights in our homes are being switched on ever earlier each week as we approach September rapidly. The driver needs a haircut. Next week maybe. Tablets ordered and picked up. Sadly a second visit required as they have only sent a months worth and we need two. The car has been serviced and MOT'd. Ripped off by the garage with their extortionate prices and failed its MOT on tyres. Same as last year. As we dip our hands deeper into our pockets we think of what we could have spent the money on. A month in Greece. A trip to the Greek Islands, even a one way flight to somewhere exotic. It all felt a day or two wasted. Although looking at it another way we only have 9 days now until we leave on the last trip of the summer.

9 days to go - the sun has come out again. The trees have been lopped in readiness for the winter. The borders dug and tidied and the last hurrah of the flowers is taking place. The Hydrangeas with pink and mauve blousey heads, a new pale lilac clematis, the last of the cherry red geraniums are going over. The grass will need another few cuts before winter finally arrives and with it the bad weather. Good things come to him who waits - mum again and another proverb. She is right but waiting seems to take an eternity. I don't do waiting very well now . Life is still manic. Trips to the hospital still taking over our lives but these are coming to an end as mother in law will be coming home and six weeks worth of care will be put in place. At least that will leave one thing less to worry about whilst we travel around the countryside enjoying ourselves . Well that is what she will think. Suzy has had a well earned wash and clean behind the ears. We paid a company to come with their ladders, chamois leathers and give her a lick and polish. Huge quantities of water, soap suds and two hours later she is clean and sparkling. In their words hopefully back to showroom condition. If nothing else at least we have not had to climb ladders and try to wash her roof battling with Heiki roof lights, solar panels and satelite dish. Took her for an inaugeral drive to get a new headlamp bulb . How foolish can you feel when it turns out it needed nothing more than a twiddle with her wires and hey presto the light was working again.

8 more sleeps - new blinds fitted in the kitchen. Zimmer frame, sticks , toilet seat delivered and mother in law home. Carers calling in in the morning to make her breakfast and get her up. They call at lunchtime to check on her and make her a spot of lunch . Final call to see if she is OK in the evening. All goes well until two days later she cancels the night call. There is never a fool like an old fool - mum again is ringing in my ears as I think how silly and selfish cancelling the call was .

Friday - I begin to get the butterfly feeling. Only one more weekend before the trip. Have we sorted everything out? Have I ordered food for mother in law whilst we are away? Are our passports in order? A quick check and the dates are fine but I did decide to go and have photographs taken for my replacement which will be due at Christmas time. Our passports last 10 years. They need six months left on them and mine just has 10 months so it will need replacing before our May trip. A trip to the photographer and glancing back at me from my photograph is an old woman I don't recognise .

Dentist - quick visit to make sure I am Ok in that area. Boarding details collected and printed. Glenn spent the day putting our new insurance details in our file, printing out city maps and putting together all the information we need for the trip. We ordered tickets for the Elephant ride at the park at Nantes dedicated to Jules Verne. Glenns driving licence application arrived . Achieving the great age of 70 in November he has received his reminder. We could have completed it today and sent it off. DVLC say it takes 9 working days to process . Too risky to trust just in case it does not arrive back. Without it we are going nowhere. As it is not due for another 3 months it can wait until our return.

I guess the comments I glean from my calendar remind me of mum and I keep reading things that make me realise the holiday is not too far way. The idea is just to stop, just wait , just dont react . If you stop and wait the holiday will come round. Once the weekend is over we only have 4 and a half days to do everything we need to do. Clean inside Suzy, load her up and we will be on the road again.

Time is flying - the start of the clean of Suzy began this morning. The cupboards have been emptied and they now have that delicious clean smell of Pledge. Dust has collected because we have not used Suzy this summer. Thick dust in the heater . Fluff everywhere. A mouldy old fridge . Cleaned when we arrived home I wonder why it is now green in places. Still it leaves a sense of real pleasure to rub the duster over, clean the sink and the toilet and hoover the carpet. My last Sunday swim undertaken. Bank Holiday tomorrow and then just a handful of days until we hit the road . Another check of our route, we keep changing our minds. Calais sounds a mess . Hooded vigilantes and people smugglers hiding in the bushes. Coming out at night with sticks they block the road to the port with trees and branches . Lorries are forced to stop. I wonder if we will see anything on our travels. Calais mayor wants the army in to clear the problems but i get the feeling because of Brexit the French government want to teach us a lesson and to send out a volley to anyone else considering ditching the sinking ship that is the United States of Europe. A footbridge has collapsed onto the road to the ports and the train. Luckily no real injuries. Just one shaken lorry driver whose lorry was sliced in half by the broken sections of the concrete bridge and a bike rider whose bike is trashed but he got away with just a couple of broken ribs. The tale goes that the road will be cleared today but given its a Sunday and tomorrow is a Bank holiday I guess that might not be just quite right. Only another one Monday to go - this time next week we will be south of Reims and heading to southern France. What a lovely thought .

So to Monday - the minutes are slowly slipping by . Suzy now has a clean cooker. Her shelves are cleaned and tidied and some semblence of order has been returned to them. Things are checked once . Checked again. Lists are made. Items taken up and added. The butterflies are increasing as they flutter round my stomach. Only four more sleepless nights. Our minds are working overtime. So much to do and so little time to do it. We are sure to have forgotten something. The Calais mayor now wants the economic migrants sent over the Channel to Britain. Rather than the FRench asking us for help to move them all back whence they came they prefer to upset us and threaten us with hoards of young men who have no right to be in France let alone Britain. Where this is all going i have no idea . I guess we will see on Saturday as we queue up waiting for our passports to be scrutinised.



Saturday – less than a week to go and of course something has to go wrong. I fill the fridge and think to myself that this feels rather warm. The fridge is not working I shout. Of course it is says the driver. I wait and on Wednesday tentively feel inside again. It is too warm for my liking. The cry has become louder and louder – the fridge is not working. We take Suzy out for a drive to Tibshelf and try the fridge on 12 volts. Surely by the time we get there it will be working I thought. Well you know what thought did – it followed a muck cart thinking it was a wedding. That is an old Cheshire saying and quite apt really as by the time we arrived at Tibshelf the blue light was staying on which suggested the fridge was working but it clearly was not. On to gas – inside for a tea and a bacon batch. Perhaps gas would kick it into action. No not a chance so last shot take her in to a service centre and hope the kind man would take pity on us and have a look. Even if it could not be repaired surely we could get a fridge by tomorrow and get it fitted. First stop local service centre at Heath Not a particularly good feeling as we told they were busy but sit down and we will check if we can do anything for you. Ten minutes later no joy. The diary comes out and the service guy flicks a page, then another and carries on. By this time I feel so frustrated I shout at him “Don’t bother – we are away on Friday – next week is no good. Second shot a place at Derby – sadly same answer. Third time lucky we hoped that Lowdhams whom we bought Suzy from would help. They suggested we levelled her up and put her electricity and try again for a couple of hours. This we did . Nothing not a sausage, the inside was warmer than an oven. They then suggested trying again on gas. By this time it felt like a joke and frustration was setting in. Phoned again – you can cook a chicken in there – bring it in they say – November !!!! What………….are they serious? Yes they are , So it was off to Halfords buy an electrical coolbox which might just keep the food cool whilst we are travelling and when we are hooked up to electicity . Not ideal I know but the best of a bad job and something that will not dampen my enthusiasm.

We left home at almost 2 and hit the almost empty M1. The temperatures are still high and the sun is still shining on us but the roadsides gives away the clue that Autumn is well on the way. The hedgerows are looking tired and rather shabby and there is just an odd hint of colour on the trees and a tinge of yellow of the Ragwort. The fields are generally cleared of crops and are stubbly waiting for the next seasons crop to be sown. It is a long journey as we hit roadworks. We crawl into Cambridge as inch by inch we home in on our stop for the night . The entrance to the campsite on Cabbage Lane is rather exclusive. Houses that you need to be a millionaire to purchase. Two and three expensive cars on the drive. It oozes wealth and has a southern feel to it. You can smell and taste the money. Arriving at the barrier I left the driver and Suzy and headed for reception. I was welcomed and issued with the rules of the campsite. I asked what time the barrier opened just to confirm as they had told me over the phone we could get out early and it would not be a problem. Oh dear – our luck has run out . The warden looked at me with a touch of disdain and said the barrier does not open until 7. In my head I calculated quickly – departure of train 9.50 , last loading about 20 minutes before that and a two and a half hour journey from the campsite to the tunnel. Now that was going to be tight even if we had no hold ups. I smiled and asked are you sure ? I was told that I could park and get out before 7. No no-one would have told you that . Wrong – they did but I could do nothing so we parked up on our grass pitch – no electricity and a cold box rapidly warming up for the night. After a cup of tea I looked at the blurb she had given me and noticed out of hours visitors car park ideal for people who need to get away early . Off I trotted with the brochure and asked the question could we move ? Of course she said. I asked why she had not offered me that before and was told that I had not asked the right question. Doh as Homer would say.

We slept well under the trees just us and a few cars . Our bad luck continued as we headed out the next morning. The M11 was free flowing, we traversed the QEII bridge easily and crossed the Medway. We caught up with the diversions put in place after the bridge collapse last week . Even this though did not dampen our enthusiasm nor our longing to be in Belle France. Arriving at the tunnel we filled up with diesel and started the drive to the terminal. Mmmmmm Danger signs , head saying something wrong. Bit like the fridge this did not seem right . There were lorries parked up and stacked for miles. Our route though remained clear. As we approached the booths the lady in front seemed to be taking an age to get her coat hanger from the machine . As we approached it went into normal mode of telling me it was retrieving our booking . Then the message came up. We are experiencing delays of two hours on the crossing. Are you happy with this? No I am not but I cannot do much about it and had to accept the message. Normally at this point the machine asks if we want to go earlier and offers me examples of times available . This time nothing it just spewed out a coathanger D with no time on it . As we approached the holding area we saw chaos . Cars parked everywhere. Motorhomes, caravans and buses taking up every inch of space . The boards were loading R so we had a long way to go and nowhere to park. We were directed in the end to a picnic area. Tempers were getting frayed as folks tried to park anywhere and got annoyed when told by the staff to move . Slowly but surely the board moved and told us X were boarding . One hour later we fell into conversation with a guy next to us who was heading for Salamanca . We discussed motor homes and places they had been to. They liked Slovenia more than Croatia. They kept going back to Salamanca they loved it so much. They lived an hour and a half from the Tunnel . Lucky souls . Eventually we got called up and moved to passport control . Just a cursory glance, pulled in for gas check and then the long wait at the next holding point . Eventually two hours late we arrived on the train and headed off . Damn the train for breaking down the tunnel. Still we got there and headed out of Calais past the rows of rows of high fences . I swear they are higher and have more razor wire at both their bases and their tops than they had in May. There was a police presence but we saw no sign of the migrants nor the jungle. The roads were fairly empty , the sun was shining as we passed the allotments. We don’t need a sat nag to get us out of Nord de Calais and on our way to Picardy.

The trees look more golden as if Autumn has advanced. The fields a mosaic of gold as the sun shone on them and green. We headed south . Past Noeux les Mines with its volcanic dome like coal tips showing an industry long gone as the alder trees are growing thicker by the year. The ski slope down one of them looks sadly abandoned. We pass by Arras a town where my friend Sam has found her favourite restaurant. We pass the World War I memorials . Our stop for the night was going to be Mareille in the heart of Champagne country. Vines everywhere as far as the eye could see. Rolling hills replaced the flatness of Picardy. Our stop was in a small village which like all French villages have a strange eclectic mix of shops and restaurants , street furniture to hamper your speed and flowers everywhere Boxes full of cherry red geraniums and lilac petunias . Bicycles decorated with flowers and elaborated roundabouts with seasonal flowers in huge swathes… Others decorated with champagne bottles – some the real thing others made up with green grasses and mosses. As we approached the canal we realised we were not stopping the night on this aire. For a start there seemed no way to get to it as the paths were too narrow. Signs proclaimed motorhomes interdit and the fair was in town. Even if we had got there and fancied a candy floss or a bag of frites the noise would have prevented us getting any sleep. Back to Plan B which was a second aire with about 10 spaces in the next village . It was not on a canal but it surely would not have a fairground set up on it. The drive up was not the best – a single track road with very few passing places. Vines from the great Champagne houses of Moet et Chandon. Roses growing on the edge of the roadside . Arriving at the camping aire we found plenty of space and we settled up next to some brits who waved to us through their window. To our other side were a Dutch couple . He listened to a very loud TV whilst she sat outside on her chair reading a book. What happened to no camping on an aire we wondered – they had tables out and the awning. So we did the same . An hour later and a bottle of English wine later we couldn’t have cared less. Our only other neighbours were a German couple whose only conversation was a smile, a cheery hello and the grapes are small. I walked over to the vines and indeed they were tiny. Overhead were two balloons . Alongside us a stream with resident ducks . On the carpark the children had drawn hopscotch. I felt the urge to get a stone and play on it. All in all despite a poor start to the week and to the day you have to say it all comes right in the end. Tomorrow is another day .

---