First stop near Dover ready for morning Ferry to France

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So looking forward to this trip. Our last summer motorhome holiday was 4 years ago June 2018. That was followed by a new knee op which cancelled the annual September trip, A year off while Bob got his heart sorted then 2020/2021 well Covid of course. We did have our trip to Spain via France in Feb / March but our main memories of that are Rain. Certainly not the winter sunshine break we had anticipated and doubt we would bother repeating it. Such a long way to go to find bad weather and we decided when we got back that we far prefer France to Spain, having spent one week of the trip travelling through France to get to Spain and back. France is easier, more familair, I speak the language so any future winter trip we might as well just go to the South of France, weather could not be worse than what we had.
PS We did enjoy the Spanish trip, a lot, just got rather wet ?

We have had a little trip away when we went to Oxford and Blenheim Palace in May. We are doing something different this trip. Towing Smart Arse on a trailer not the A-Frame. A-Frames are perfectly legal in the UK and really they are legal in France too as they are legal here, our country of origin. But have decided not to test the French police view of this so have a small trailer, just big enough for the Smart Car and we will be towing it behind. We decided we needed to test the arrangement so headed down to Oxfordshire, to a site where we could see we had plenty of space to practice manoevres and had a really pleasant mini break. The trailer behaved perfectly.

So garden is prepared to be left for a few weeks, watering duties arranged with next door's son. Everything as tidy as it is likely to be, glass tools put away, work bench cleared. France here we come. I can almost taste that first baguette and jam breakfast !

All we need now is sunshine and above all warmth. It's been really chilly last couple of weeks with an icy cloud blocking the sun most of the time. Hopefully by the time we are a few miles down France things will warm up.

We would have left a few days earlier but decided to stay at home for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and what a delight it was too. We watched the main events on Tv in between preparing the house, garden and motorhome for the trip. So glad we stayed to enjoy such a joyous celebration. The Saturday night concert was extra special as that was my birthday so it felt as if they were all singing to me .?
By Sunday teatime the motorohome was packed. The Jubilee bunting, wet from a lot of rain, was down and spread out to dry in the garage. Garden staked and ready for wet, dry, cold, hot and slugs. Hedgehog food in a pot ready for next door's son to feed each night as we are currently very privileged to have a nightly visitor, 'Hedges'. 10 inches long and Hungry. Birds fed excess amount of food with instructions to make it last, don't eat it all at once but they will ! Shame to miss the flowering of the rather special pink iris and the peony but the sun has not shone enough to bring them out so they will undoubtedly burst in to glorious bloom as we drive away and then be fully wilted by the time we return.

So Monday morning we left at a leisurely pace. Down towards Dover to a C&CC CL at Staple called Norlands, just a few miles out of Dover down some country roads. Roads A50 M1 M25 M2 A2 all busy but no problems which was excellent so arrived at the site at 4pm and settled in for a pleasant evening. Great to report that Smart Arse followed behind obediently on the trailer and the trailer proved to have excellent brakes when we had to emergency stop on the narrow road up to the campsite when we met and fortunately missed, the school bus. Only casualty was a packet of nuts which threw itself from the top of the cupboard in a rather dramatic way.
We had considered a stroll to the local pub after dinner but found the pubs all seem to be closed on Monday so just strolled along the country road instead and listened to the bird song. fyi The campsite owner has 4 ferrets... photo attached.
France tomorrow ?

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Comments

[Rosemary]

Thank you
Enjoy! xxxx

[Home and Away]

I, too, was disappointed with the weather during your last visit to Spain...
This is the time of year that I would visit the French Riviera. We usually stayed at the Hotel Royal in Antibes, or a Pierre et Vacances resort at some other beach...perfect for the kids! I hope your weather is perfect. I look forward to reading your blogs.

[BobsJoy]

Weather
Thank you.So far so astonishingly very good. Last night in Dover I wore a fluffy fleece top. Today 300 miles south of there a sun top and I was wearing a tshirt when we walked on the beach at 8pm ... Smiles all the way to the blue sky x