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Published: August 8th 2007
Weather looks set to be lovely!
Lots of seagulls looking picturesque...Saturday 16th
: Awoke and ready in time, a good run down to Dover (yes, Dover!) meeting Linda and Jim at the services and then on the ferry in plenty of time. I don’t particularly like sitting inside on the ferry, so headed off to find the outside after a quick look in the “duty free”. Decided to get some mini perfumes on the way back to meet the Hitchens, having seen Calais slowly approaching from the distance, and also picked up some Euros! Then drove back across (and I was right about one bit it was not far from Le Havre) to
St Christophe Sur Conde, largest nearby town in
Pont Audemer (which is twinned with Ringwood, near Bournemouth!). Took a bit longer than expected, so we dashed into
Aldi just before it closed to grab food for an evening meal, then settled down with our 46p bottle of wine (which was the nicest/cheapest of the three we bought) and relaxed… with a quick look round the grounds first.
We’d had great fun on the way over with the road signs, 130 dry, 110 wet… “so, does that mean 110km til it rains” - wow, how do they know that? Soon after Calais there
was a sign in English only “2km to traffic jam” - we were confused by this, why was this only an English traffic jam - all explained as we drove past it - it was a kind of outlet place for cheap booze, etc… Tried to get photos of various things on the roadside, but didn’t come out too well (to great amusement of others in the car) and will try again on way back… funniest was the train, which my camera sometimes clicks fast, and sometimes holds, so I pressed, and just about got the nose in… train went past too fast to get again!
Sunday 17th
: Bit of a ‘mooch’ day, checking out possible places to eat for a meal out later in the week, and collecting some nice food for lunch. Despite the rain, decided wanted a walk, so stepped into the unknown and did a bit of a ‘round the block’, before coming back in time to cook Sunday evening’s roast with Helene! Seemed to go down well, and then we had a chill-out evening with some games! Also re-working my way through Harry Potter in preparation for book 7…!
Monday 18th
: Into Pont
Audemer for market day - strangely enough found it quite difficult to park! Had a good look round the markets, but aside from the live chickens and rabbits for sale, there was not a lot of ‘Frenchness’ going on… but a small corner shop next to the fountain square had some nice ‘rustic’ stuff which will go nicely in the Hitchens new kitchen! Rambling around looking at the beamed buildings, then settled down in a café for a café! Well, I didn’t, I just took a picture of the men who were playing dominoes… and looked like they’d stepped right out of my French GCSE textbooks as I remember them! Picked up some more fresh fruit from the market… others found it hilarious how indignant I was at the fact that I asked the woman for 1kg of Cherries, gave her precisely the right the money, and she asked for another 60 cents… why not take 60 cents worth of cherries out?!
A quick check to see if we could find the war museum on the way back (we didn’t!), and back for lunch, before setting out on a bit of a driving loop, stopping off en route for
"Inside Joke" photo...
Try and capture the speeding train... a look round a Catholic church, and a hike up 220 steps! Helene and I asked Phil for a photo at the top, and had great amusement for the rest of the week when we realised not even the hair on our heads was in the photo - try 2 was a good one though, ‘cos we were still laughing so much! On the way back, into
Decathlon (it’s in the UK too!), picked up a few t-shirts for the big travels, then back to the house for more wine and food, Helene and I sorted out meat/veggie kebabs, beautiful pure burgers and spicy sausages… we tried the BBQ, but the special “BBQ twigs” we ended up with instead of charcoal weren’t quite up to the job, so grill it was, wafting it over the BBQ for the taste afterwards! A quick game of outdoor darts, and another silly game, then relaxing with a book (yes, Harry Potter again) for the evening!
Tuesday 19th
: Looked like a nice day, so we headed into
Honfleur, and split up for a bit of wander round the town. Arrived only about 45 minutes before the shops shut for the traditional 12-2 lunchbreak,
so after looking round a couple of churches, spotting random photo opportunities, and avoiding the typical French public toilet (tip: look for the disabled toilets!), we hooked up again for lunch. After a few places, decided to go
L’Arome Marin, as they appeared to offer burger and chips (that traditional French cuisine which someone fancied!)… turned out to be a Creperie, so it was a burger wrapped in a buckwheat crepe with some nice condiments… I know, as I decided to give it a try as it looked like an interesting combination… it was so nice Jim decided to have one as his pudding… I had a “Normandie” crepe for dessert… also very nice (apples, cream, toffee sauce).
Another hour’s walk in the afternoon… Helene and I tried to find the beach, but didn’t quite get there as we needed to head back. As we got back it started to rain, so that was well-timed, so we drove past the beach. We headed for
Deauville, but by the time we got there it was wet and humid, so we decided to head back! Looked for more photo opportunities out of the window, and after a stop at the Intermarche, went
The First Stop
A real taste of France...! past the picturesque hospital, a beautiful agricultural College, and made a sudden stop next to the town-twinning sign for Pont Audemer/Ringwood, which Jim nicely cleaned up for us - to some strange looks from passers-by! Settled down for some more nice French food… gateaux anyone?! Slight incident with the door-handle which caused much hilarity, then usual games/chilling with wine for the evening.
Wednesday 20th
: After a walk - it wasn’t raining at all - back round the block, checking out the donkey (useful landmark, left at the donkey), back in the kitchen to cook up a grill-up, with microwaved poached eggs (great invention!). Helene & Phil disappeared off with the rubbish to the communal tips - hanging it out of the window to avoid the smells, then we decided to abandon plans for Rouen, and head into Bernay (stopping for photo opportunities with cows/bins and whatever else appeared funny at the time), which was a relaxed walk-round, looking for the Abbey (closed!), then back onto the road in search for a Chateaux or two… nothing like the ones in the Loire apparently, but still… We made it to
Champ de Bataille, but weren’t over-excited by it or it’s entry price, so
headed onto
domaine d’Harcourt, which was much more reasonable, and was contained within an arboretum, so quite a lot to see there! Can’t believe how fast everyone looked round it… although it was quite sparsely exhibited, but some interesting content (I don’t appear to have forgotten ALL my French language!), and I was getting side-tracked by experimenting with the Quik-Pod!
A stop in Campigny on the way back for a quick drink in the Tabac, then back to the
Intermarche to pick up a few bottles to take home, then back for some charades, using up any remaining food, and a very random game of home-made Pictionary, before making sure that the house was as tidy as possible for the next day when we would be heading home… sob!
Thursday 21st
: We finished clearing up the house, and jammed everything into the car - that was a party trick, and whilst the last bits were being done, I decided we shouldn’t waste the wild raspberries and picked a good bag-full! We headed back onto the motorway - NOT avoiding the Peage… such nice roads (a bargain, really)! Plenty of Croissants and Pain au Chocolat in the car, and a
slightly more successful number of photos (partly as I was sat in the front!). At Calais there was a bit of a delay as one of the ferries was out of order, but not too bad - although there is NOTHING to do at Calais except sit in your car! Got the Harry Potter out again, and he kept me company again on the ferry all the way back… Slow moving off Dover, and hit a bit of traffic on the M25, but all in all not a bad journey back!
A quick night’s stopover at the Hitchens back in Winchester, before heading to Cornwall the next day. We downloaded the MANY photos, had a good laugh at many of them, checked out our
Facebook entries, and then went for a run… a couple of weeks of no running makes that hard work! Ensured that everything was ready to re-pack in the car for the next day, and had everything washed - it wasn’t all dry the next day, so, excitingly, it was spread all over the back of my car… what fun! Thankfully it was a sunny day, so a lot of it did try pretty well on
We thought about going for a meal here...
... very 'gastronomique', with 'astronmique' prices... the way back!
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