France 170 Montreuil sur Mer- a wet night , the first french croissant and decent bread . . We finally made it .

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Well we finally made it. Covid has stopped us . Brexit has fowled us up but here we are. Our passports stamped for the first time for many years . A new era of life outside the EU.

We had a good nights sleep on what was just a small 8 motorhome aire in the town of Montreuil sur Mer. It was never our first choice but the lateness of the tunnel crossing, the awful weather and the closure of the aire we intended stopping on forced us into this one . It had free toilets, water and waste services were available for 2euros . But we needed none of them . Gabbys batteries despite the lousy weather are holding up impeccably. We are in France .

The sat nav had misbehaved last night . Possibly due to the poor weather . She kept recalculating routes . She kept stopping and starting . We hoped for better today. She had taken us some wrong ways and were were annoyed with her . Ramana Maharishi had said once that we should "Let come what comes and let go what goes. Let us see what remains" Well we had finally let go of our frustrations of being stuck at Eurotunnel . Things could only get better .

I left the driver in the van and headed up the 2 minute walk to the town . I passed vets surgeries, the local doctors surgery and a lawnmower shop where for 1500 euros or so I could buy an automated mower. I walked up the ramparts . High green mounds with the town below me . I was getting wet as it was still drizzly and mizzly . The world seemed much the same as yesterday. France looked just like the UK in April . I needed my coat that was for sure .

The pretty square I walked to had every shop you could think of and more . Houses with what I call streaky bacon brickwork . Empty houses that once were extremely grand . Everywhere felt functional .

I walked into the pattisserie . There was not a massive choice of cakes but I purchased two chocolate eclairs as a treat , two croissants for breakfast and the obligatory traditional baguette. Quite a tough bread , Chewy, I wondered why we cannot make our baguettes like this . I walked back with baguette under my arm in typically french fashion hurrying out of the rain .

Time for those two crossants , a strong coffee and a change of plan . The medieval Plantagenet city of Le Mans was to be our morning stop but the lateness of the train had meant that we had to make a decision . Do the city on a whistle stop tour ? Do it in the rain ? We decided to give it a miss , we could do the museum at the 24 hour circuit instead . That was the plan but the gods were amassed against us . - so what could go wrong with the short trip to Le Mans?

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