Wrexham County Borough 112 - Just as a candle /No parking so it is goodbye to Italy and hello to a Silicon Valley owner of a property in the south of France /testing concrete

---

The Buddha had this saying and it goes something like this " Just as a candle cannot burn without fire , men cannot live without a spiritual life " I found myself playing with words again . Changing a spiritual life to a travelling life . I wondered now with Gabby if I considered myself a holidaymaker, a tourist , a traveller or something else . Moving from place to place like a nomad had always left me feeling more a traveller. The new holiday regime this year was something of a strange one . What would we make of our first holiday back in hotels and in someone elses property for a week ? How would we feel staying in one place for a week ? Travelling back and forth down the same roads . Only having a radius of 50 miles to investigate .

A few weeks had passed since the last blog about North Wales . A month since Sion and Woolly met up in Shrewsbury and a fortnight since our visit to Shropshire . We had been to a few more football matches . The season is almost coming to an end . Six games left . The information out on Wembley for the play offs . Tickets sold to every match home and away until the end of the season ,. The concrete being tested ready for the new floodlights which are at present being produced in Spain . Is there no company in the UK that could have manufactured them ? A sad indictment on the state of British industry which once was the envy of the world . We no longer make our own steel . The steel works that are left belong to Indian companies who no doubt will pull the plug at some point . The King of Leon concert well under the way of organising .

The mornings are lighter . Whilst it is too early for the sun to beam in through the windows the light does filter in and wakes us up. The days are longer and the nights lighter. The clocks changing last weekend have made a vast difference . It is lighter as I head for swimming and much brighter when I walk . The daffodils are just going over but are replaced with the sunny yellow of the Celandines . A few white Stitchwort and Wood Anemones are braving the weather which is still inclement . April showers and real downpours . The trees and hedgerows are beginning to green up and many like the Buckthorne and the Blackthorne are flowering . Their heady scents fill the air . The Magnolias have suffered from the frosts and dropped their browned petals . Our coughs are still lingering on and there is Covid in the hospital and Covid in the town . As I walked I wondered how many people still wear masks ? A few in the shops. Mainly the very elderly although their ages are probably not much more than ours . How many people still buy tests and use them ? A few I believe . We have taken the approach that we are not testing . If we feel ill we stay in . When we feel better we go out . Life has to go on .

The sky was more blue than it had been for some while . The birds were quiet . That was because it was later in the day . My brain was in overdrive . We had checked our passports and they were all in order . Anyone wanting a passport renewed over the next month would be unlucky as the Passport Office were striking . We had our health cards for what they were worth . Our first aid kit had come out of Gabby before she was sold and we noticed the contents were out of date . It felt odd not to be cleaning Gabby before our travels . By now I would be polishing, checking medicines and making sure the bedding was sorted . Instead we had no idea how the holiday would go. Calais hotel was booked as was the hotel in Strasbourg on the journey out and the return .However text messages to the owner of the Como property checking the parking arrangements had not gone according to plan . After two days of trying to contact the owner we gave up and cancelled the booking . That in turn meant cancelling the Strasbourg hotel. Onto Plan B which meant trawling the internet for a different holiday destination . South of France had come to mind . Somewhere between Toulon and Frejus . We had visited the area in Suzy so it was not going to be a new destination for us . We eventually found one which seemed to tick all the boxes. In a quiet village owned by what appeared to be an Irish lady . It looked a lovely property and had a swimming pool and ample parking . However I would not be doing much swimming as the temperature would not be hot enough in May. All went well until we checked the prices with her . Used to 10 euros or free nights parking this was a wierd experience . Her price was higher than quoted . She was not Irish but American and worked in Silicon Valley. She agreed that the company we had tried to book it with had not updated their prices . She agreed to honour the previous years price but added 150 euros for cleaning which seemed excessive and another 100 euros for utility bills .

Plan B was quickly going down the pan and we had had to revert to Plan C. Another lovely property in a different town with supermarkets , boulangeries and restaurants . This one fitted the bill perfectly so Plan C it was .

With my head swimming with all sorts of thoughts it was time to get home and have breakfast . Time to return to thinking about clothes for the south of France , booking a different hotel in Chalon on the way down . And a visit to see the Dragon at Calais. Now that made it feel like more of a holiday up and coming . A tourist , a traveller or just a holidaymaker ? Time will tell .

---

Comments

[Home and Away]

I love it when a plan comes togetther!
Have a great time! Our family visited the French Riviera many times, with Antibes being our base of operations. We would go to the beach every morning, and then explore the hilltop towns and the cities along the coast in the afternoon. Linda will be visiting family in Pennsylvania in May, and we will then visit our three kinds and families in California, New Jersey, and Connecticut fro mid June to mid July. I'm hoping that we can visit Eastern Europe in September...on the trail of ancestors! Now that our dear Bonnie has passed away it will be much easier for us to travel together...

[JenGog]

holidays
We have been down on this part of Med before but could not park in some places due to the van being too big and awkward to find spaces. We have found a lovely place to stay inland . Hopefully will visit Frejus, St Tropez and a few places around Nice . We only have a week there so it will not be the same as travelling for a month . I would love to see Pennsylvania . I have always fancied the east coast travelling down to the Civil War sites . Maybe one day and would like to visit an elderly relative in St Louis . We missed her in 2010 when we came to the States. It will be easier for you now but you will miss Bonnie . We have a friend coming to look after the cat whilst we are away . Not sure what other plans we have for this year . Glenn is hoping to try to get his gun licence back . He got to the point of applying before we moved to Wales however with Covid it got put on hold. He is having to do his probation again and that likely wont start until September . It might ruin any chance of a late holiday . Eastern Europe will be lovely in September . Hope everything goes to plan for you .