L'incident

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Hi all,

Thought it must be time for an update on our travels so far this Autumn. We left home on Saturday 3^rd September and besides what is now referred to as L'incident and Frodo’s heart problems all is going very well and we’re thoroughly enjoying ourselves, but you must wait for L'incident details as we will take this chronologically.

We stayed our first night near St Albans and caught up with friends. Next we had a night near Canterbury and then early the following morning wnet through the channel tunnel over to Calais, all very easy and straightforward. Our first night in France was at Chalon en Champagneabout 200 miles south of Calais.The town was having an agricultural show and apart from taking the caravan through the show car park, which it is a road the rest of the year, all went fine. We only stayed one night but need to go back and stay a few days as centre looks quite stunning. Next onto Chalon Sur Saone, where we stayed for three nights on the edge of the river, great place with an island in the river and marvellous old town. Next we set off to Grane, the location of L'incident, I know that’s what you really want to hear about!

Now, we should have known better than to trust the sat nav, especially ours which is called Daniel, not because it is called Daniel, a very fine name, but because it appears to have a bias to Spain over France! In Spain it has always worked fine every time but in France we kept putting in the coordinates for sites and so far five out of five have failed to get us to the site, but only one with dramatic effect, L'incident.

There we were about 100km south of Lyon having successfully navigated the Lyon tunnels taking us through the centre of Lyon ignoring the motorway ring road as Jane, senior navigator and much superior to Daniel, had deemed it too far out of our way, heading for a village site we missed the sign for the village and took an alternative route following Daniel's instructions because we cannot see any signs for the site. Heading towards the centre of the village, Daniel says turn right and just around the corner on the right there will be a larger road which we should follow; Daniel should not always be trusted! Right we turned and immediately had concerns as it is a very narrow road, just wide enough for the caravan and the corner is actually a house, not just a bend, carefully we proceeded around the house, inches to spare well at least at wheel level, but got caught out be the camber of the road, and caught a strip of rubber by the awning rail which is pulled a small bit out of its slot, not good but no going back and remember the bigger road is just on the right. Yes you have guessed - it did not exist! The only way was forward and this led to an archway in the middle of a row of houses, about eight feet wide by ten high but the road leading to it was on a curve!

Now the archway, was not in a city wall or anything like that, it was either that there had been two terraces of house and someone decided to build an extra bedroom over the road or one terrace where the residents got fed up with taking the coal through their houses and knocked out someone's front room, either way the job was finished by Picasso and Son, not a straight line in sight. One enterprising resident had relocated his door to come out into the archway, such an improvement as it looked different from all his neighbours. So, with Jane now watching the rear we go for it, through goes the car but not quite the caravan, Jane calls a stop just before we hit the archway and I get out to review the situation.

We’d not got the angle quite right, no space for Jane to get though from the back or me through from the front so we discussed the options by shouting down the side of the caravan. Whilst doing this a door opens half way through the archway and its resident finds his way out is blocked by a caravan, his expression was quite interesting. This nice French chap (NFC) then used his patio door to come see what’s happening. There he found me scratching my head in an English sort of way and he scratches his head in a French sort of way, then goes back inside and gets blankets to put, via his blocked door, over the top side of caravan to stop any scratching and so we edge forward. But to no avail! No good needs to go back and try to straighten up. After a couple of tries with the car to go backwards we all agree (mostly by sign language) that it must be done by hand. Nice French chap (NFC) is joined by another NFC (NFC2) and I explain about the motor mover, using standard international charade gestures, but the control is inside the caravan and of course this is right up against the archway wall! NFC 3&4 arrive and we push the caravan back so that the caravan door is in line with NFC's front door, he invites me in through his house, (old wall paper and two canaries viewed!), opens his front door, I open the caravan door and retrieve the motor mover control. Now we are cooking on gas!

With NFC, myself and the motor mover control at the front and NFCs 2,3&4 and Jane at the rear we edge the caravan back out of the arch with much gesturing and multilingual advice from all parties. Once out we could straighten up the caravan and in and through it goes without a scratch, even with a flue pipe still in place, not for the lack of NFC trying to dismantle it, the total time taken about 45 minutes. The caravan is looking a bit sad with rubber bit hanging down, but none the worse for the archway. This all put me in mind of Claude, Claude is a young but seasoned campaigning motor home with many thousand miles under his belt over the last couple of years, and Claude self repairs himself with silver sided gaffer tape after such minor skirmishes, what I need to hold rubber in place is gaffer tape. Also thinking that I must reward all the NFCs, and how grand the spirit of Entente Cordiale is even after the Brexit vote, off I go to get the last four English beers from the caravan. When I return NFCs 3&4 have left, so NFC and NFC2 get two bottles of beers each, which is only fair as they did the most work, and NFC has appeared with a pair of steps and he and NFC2 re-attach the hanging rubber, without any gaffer tape, such French skills, and give us directions for the campsite. After much thanks, kissing and shaking of hands off we go round a couple of bends and there is the site clearly sign posted. We arrived, took the easiest pitch available and walked the dogs, still feeling a bit stressed I think it is time for an early beer, I’m sure that I have a few English beers left for just such an occasion...

Next on to Cavalaire sur Mer, just west of St Tropez, hot day but as usual we set up the caravan, put the cool coats on the dogs and off for a short walk, well so we thought, unfortunately Frodo passed out and collapsed. Fortunately he quickly came round but we abort the walk to try again later when the temperature has dropped a bit, but Frodo collapses again. Still thinking it is the heat, it had been into the low thirties, we give him minimum exercise and plenty of time in the air-conditioned caravan. A couple of days later it happened again when we were only taking him out for his business and it was 7.30 in the morning so quite cool, OK not just the heat, off to a nice French vet to hear it is his heart, not a total surprise as he has had a heart murmur for some years, so now equipped with enough tablets to make him fair rattle for the rest of the trip and have to build up the exercise slowly to see what happens.

Apart from the Frodo issue we had a good 5 days at Cavalaire sur Mer, involving a couple of trips to the beach, visit to St Tropez to look at how the other 0.005% live, boats, artists etc, all in a great setting of the old buildings around the harbour and a hill village.

Next we moved onto Cagnes sur Mer (must like sur Mers) which is just outside Nice. Pete flew into Nice to joined us for a week and we did what you are meant to do in this area. We visited Nice, looking at old town and big boats, visited Monaco, looking at old town, boats and grand prix track, visited Cannes, looked at boats etc., Jane and I have now seen enough boats, although I think Pete could have happily looked at more, only rich people’s paradise. We visited everywhere by train which made life very easy. I think Pete enjoyed it, he loves boats and planes and Cagnes sur Mar is right on the end of Nice airport runway. Also we hired the equivalent of Boris bikes and Jane cycled for the first time since breaking her hip, 3 years and 1 month ago, when she fell off a mountain bike, very successfully, unfortunately less so for my back so I quickly left Jane and Pete to exercise themselves while I searched out a restaurant for moules et frites for lunch. Great to see Jane happily on a bike again.

Now as you may know we had air conditioning fitted to the caravan before we left. It works really well and means we can leave the dogs without any worry, or so we thought! The dogs have never damaged anything in the caravan, until the last couple of days when we were at Cagnes sur Mer, one day pulling off the rubber edging to the door and the next day the plastic surround to the door. Not sure what’s happening, wonder if it is Frodo’s lack of exercise or medication turning him slightly neurotic, anyway more repairs needed when we get back!

Now we are in Italy, totally different, site outside a small seaside village, great location, free mini bus into the village and best way to visit all the very picturesque local villages is by rail and walking. Have walked Frodo a bit further the last couple of days and left them in the caravan for an hour this afternoon and no damage so fingers crossed.

Well that about brings us up to date, hope you’re all OK. We are both fine, next stop is Lake Garda before leaving Italy for Austria.

Love to all

Terry and Jane

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Photos

Chalon sur Saone
Such a surprisingly great town

Chalon sur Saone
Yes it’s painted on

Chalon sur Saone
So is this, well not Jane

Chalon sur Saone
Never could find the bottom of this building

Chalon sur Saone
Great site by the river

Cavalaire sur mer
A site with a view

Cavalaire sur mer
Now not too far

St Tropez
Look Terry scooters

St Tropez
And the start of boats