Two days travelling up France ready for the ferry.

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Last two days of our lovely holiday have been spent making our way up France. 200ish miles a day is plenty when you’re in a motorhome and not in a flying rush and don’t want to use motorways. Motorways send me to sleep. On normal roads I sit in my high up passenger seat and snap photos of anything I fancy as we go past. Motorways though have crash barriers which badly limits phototaking so I sit back, shut my eyes and next minute Bob is shouting at me to open the window and grab a toll ticket or pay the last one 😊 😊. The French non motorways are always a far better alternative.

First night stop was at Camping du Vivier des Carpes which is near to St Quentin in the Somme Valley. There are so many First World War cemeteries in this area that every time we drove past one I thought of Putin and I got very cross indeed. We had to drive through a few towns to get there and I was also getting a little annoyed with Clarissa Tomtom. She is programmed to know that we are a motorhome + car and therefore to be careful not to take us down silly little roads which are too small for us. She had a good try yesterday, on several occasions to get us stuck and I had to put my Google maps on to get us out of town safely. Basically if the road is signed 30 limit and pointing to the town centre it is best avoided.

Weather still glorious, blue sky all the way and the fields and roads are full of tractors getting the crops in while the sun shines.

The campsite is built round some fishing lakes and there were indeed a number of happy campers sitting on their little stools with their rods dangling in the water. The campsite also has a pool and it was Open so I had a swim and was very happy. Then a drink at the bar. Excellent way to end the day.

Last day’s drive was to Camping Chateau de La Bien Assise in Guines where we stayed last night of our June trip too.

Less far to drive today as we needed time to stop off for a going home shop. Wine for Bob and some favourite French bits and bobs pour moi. 😊
Found an intermarche and stocked up and then filled various nooks and crannies of the motorhome with the bottles. Oddly we developed a squeak afterwards as we drove along which may be caused by the bottles but not sussed that yet.

We were of course on the non motorway route but ridiculously we could find nowhere at all to even pull up to investigate the squeak. Narrow roads, no stopping places and nowhere we could easily pull in and guarantee pulling out again. This delayed lunch by quite a lot and honestly it must have been well over an hour from when Bob started looking for a stopping place until we found a laybye. Loud cheer went up from us and motorhome / Smart Car who were well due a stop.

We were getting very cross with Clarissa Tomtom as she seemed to be taking us on a magical mystery tour. By this point I had the French road atlas on my knee to work out which route was she was taking us but the roads were so minor, they didn’t have numbers on my map. Couldn’t understand why we were going the way we were and not helped by two road BarrÉE signs. And the roads really were shut so Bob had to carefully turn us round to go a different way.

I could see a perfectly good route on my map but couldn’t direct us to it as didn’t know which road we were on. Naughty Clarissa was not popular today and Bob’s shoulders were aching by the time we got to the campsite from all the sharp bends on tiny roads he had had to maul the motorhome never mind all the road humps in the little villages.

All was explained later when Bob went to smack Clarissa to find that she had switched herself to “Shortest Route”. We NEVER use that setting 😊 😊
No matter, arrived safely and I had a swim in the campsite pool, which will undoubtedly be the last for quite a number of months. Just back at the van when the heavens opened and they have stayed open ever since. Sounds even worse as we are under trees so even when the rain eases the trees then shake themselves.

We have an early start tomorrow. Not as planned. We booked the 11.15 Irish Ferry but 2 days ago had a text to say that was cancelled so we have to catch the 9.40. Hope this campsite pitch is not in the middle of a pond by then !

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