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Published: February 26th 2015
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A hearty hola to you dear readers from the sun soaked, cloudless blue skied and generally groovy part of Spain that is called El Rocio. Due to the heat your correspondent and the dog known as Cusco have been forced indoors to cool down - damn these hot February days. All this chatter of lovely weather can only mean one thing - I have got ahead of myself, as you have not yet been amazed, astounded and even perhaps interested in our journey here. Many adventures and tales of valor to tell, so settle back and read on beginning with the first day of our odessey .........
......... which started in Barton on Sea, where I managed to reverse onto a post and rip a back panel off Claude - that is enough about the first day.
The second day of the adventure saw our happy crew head off to the fun factory that is Folkestone. With the rear of the van being held together with some magical masking tape and a few Faustian pacts to ensure safety, we trundled merrily through the very cold British countryside feeling very proud of ourselves in that we would not need to
stop in shops or service stations as we would now be totally self sufficient. Stopping just before the bigoted town of Lewes, we pulled into a lay by, parked up and sat round the table before realising we had forgotten to fill a flask to make tea or coffee......complicated business this self sufficiency, I tell you. Without further ado - apart from driving round small, windy roads in the pitch dark through Romney Marshes and having swearing arguments with the sat nav woman - the campsite was reached and we settled down, closing the shutters to the ice and snow.
Next morning after breaking the frozen locks on the shower block, your correspondent pointed Claude in the general direction of the Eurotunnel. Now, before going any further, let me provide a few words to explain this - it is a tunnel that goes under the channel to mainland Europe. You have not been charged for that information. Luckily for us, the other end came out in France which was where we wanted to go - phew !!!!! Reading the open minded and more liberal newspapers in the UK such as the Mail, Express, Telegraph, Mein Kampf etc.... your correspondent
had been left to believe that all the roads around Calais were a heaving mass of illegal immigrants trying to break through security forces and run through the tunnel - I saw not one.
Those of you who have been paying attention would recall the damage that had been done to the van - am glad you remembered as I had forgotten and would have missed out a thoroughly dangerous part of our story, which would not have been good as I need to pad this out !!! Now this bit may seem a bit complicated, but bear with me. Deep breath and here we go . The make of our motor home is a Chausson. Wendy's dad lives in Rouen. There is a Chausson dealership and repairs garage in Rouen. We went to Rouen. I hope we did not lose too many dear readers in that detailed and in depth part of the blog. We had discovered that there was a campsite very close to W's dad, so the plan was to go there. Wendy will tell you there was nothing wrong with the campsite and would have happily spent time there as there was nothing to worry
about. It falls on me to tell the whole truth.
The site was a field on a slope. Around the fence,there can only be described a graveyard of caravans that were in different stages of decay and discolouration. Sat outside each caravan, there were groups of men whittling wood, playing banjos and drowning furry animals which was definitely not super. Despite the bitter cold, the wearing of vests and drinking cold meths seemed to be the mode amongst them. Your correspondent pointed these chaps out the the gentleman who was asking for money to stay at the camp, and once he wiped the blood from his mouth informed us that they were itinerant workers at the nearby refineries - they were not local people,but came from some of the lower levels of Hades. Wendy took all this in and turned round to explain that all was in order and was surprised to see a cloud of dust, as Cusco and I ran in the general direction of away as fast as the laws of nature allowed us. We only slept at this site one night - I say slept meaning Wendy slept, while the spaniel and I sat by
the door brandishing makeshift weapons to fight off intruders.
Anyway, the garage soon repaired Claude and we headed on our way once more. The next stop was at a city called Tours on the banks of the river Loire. On entering the campsite a big sign explained that occasionally the river would flood and if it did, the campers would have to evacuate very quickly as the site is below the level of the river - think back to the Somerset levels. Normally this sort of information does not worry your correspondent, however, as we were in the middle of a monsoon and some guy had built a bloody big boat and had pairs of animals lining up to get on it pronto, I paid a bit more attention. We only slept at this site one night - I say slept meaning Wendy slept, while the spaniel and I took turns pumping up airbeds to make a quick get away when the banks broke !!!! Tours was left the next morning and we once more hit the road to even more interesting stories.
Tune in again soon to hear about Gary from Sheffield, camping in a car park,
moving toll machines, mountains, snow and eventually some sunshine when this blog finally gets to Spain !!!!
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Sharon Brown
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A wonderful time and I would love to join you all on your travels
Absolutely fantastic - the weather will slowly warm up now you are heading South. I hope Claude is in a good state of repair again. Wendy I hope you are good too and enjoying all the different locations. A lovely blog and enjoying reading it - I think Gordon should be a writer and has a very good sense of humour. I think we are all on the road with you - if you are in the South of France in June I will be there but will watch the blog to see where you are heading (love to you allxx)