Blogs from Nord-Pas de Calais, France, Europe - page 4

Today went like clockwork. Up at 6.30, showered, last oddments into Tandy, birds given a last meal of suet pellets and insructed to go find their own food for the next few weeks and we were on the road at 7.30am. Brilliant drive down, not a holdup in sight. It is school holidays so that could account for less traffic than normal. A bit foggy but no sign of the weather advertised as "risk to life" (Ryanair had cancelled all their Stanstead flights just in case !) In fact, such a good drive down that we arrived at the Chunnel terminal 2 hours before our booked train time of 2.20. Thought maybe we would be put on an earlier train but there were warning signs of 'disruption" and the terminal car park was chocker. Had our ... read more

We must be in the Irish region of France as Murphy has been everywhere today. We awoke to find that French public servants had pulled a lightening strike and the lock operators had not turned up for work. Uncertain as to when the strike would be lifted Henry decided that we should head off for our bike ride and check in with Chiel later in the day to see whether we should return to Valenciennes or continue on to Tournai. We were berthed right in the middle of Valenciennes but were just resting against three pillars so poor old Chiel had to manoeuvre the boat to align the offload point with the jetty. This was an exacting task which involved much friendly banter (in Dutch) between Chiel and Jantien (forward deck hand aka chef). After completing ... read more

Woke to another misty river view. Very autumnal now. Set off north along some quiet country roads and it was fortunate they were quiet as several were not very wide and visibility could at best be called heavily misted. Bob had identified an Intermarche at Bapaume so we headed there and stocked up on wine for the winter and then all the nice things I like to put in my store cupboards. On the way again, bottles rattling away under the table where we store them in two collapsible crates. It stayed very misty until midday but then the sky cleared to blue again. Nice of it as we leave tomorrow ! We had to detour round Bapaume as the road through town was closed but managed to find another, country road, to get us up ... read more

Saturday 8thJuly By the time you read this, we will be home….. After leaving Romania, we spent the rest of our time wandering back to Calais through Hungary, Austria, Germany and Belgium before spending our last two nights on the Opal coast in France. In Hungary we camped on the Danube and cycled to Tata, a pretty town built along the shore of a large lake. A smaller lake close by was created by Count Esterhazy who bought the town and built a summer house surrounded by an English garden complete with folly and fake ruins. In Austria, we stayed at Tulln, another picturesque town. We cycled around the centre and then further afield exploring the surrounding smaller villages. How refreshing to cycle on the flat for a change, although a strong headwind made sure we ... read more

It was that time of year again....8yrs this time! ? 10yrs of actual togetherness ❤️ James is now living with us full time and in the midst of his GCSE's so our options were quite limited as we couldn't be away from home for too long. Luckily our friend Neil had offered to come and stay for the weekend to keep an eye on James so at least the child care aspect was taken care of ? . Not that he actually needed looking after.....as a 15yr old James is very sensible and we had no concerns ? . NSPCC guidelines, however recommend that you don't leave under 16's over night so it was handy that Neil was available. We decided on Lille. The Eurostar ? took us right into the city centre and Andrew's work ... read more