July Holiday, 25 July

After breakfast this morning we followed the satnav to the Arras Memorial, and found my great-uncle's name on the Flying Services Memorial. The cemetery and memorial were very lovely, and I took a lot of photos.

Arras provided a free shuttle bus into town (in hindsight, we'd have done better to have gone to that car park last night, but we didn't know that), so we took that and explored the city centre for a bit, and bought memorial crosses in the Tourist Office (sold by the British Legion, not a do-the-tourist scam). Then we caught the bus back to the car park and had lunch, and then, after placing the memorial cross, and taking a photo of a friend's great-grandfather's grave for her, we drove to Thiepval, where we found my other great-uncle's name on the memorial where they said it would be. Rather high up so difficult to photograph, but we managed in the end, and left the cross. 

Then the Swan Whisperer went to explore the Ulster Memorial a few hundred metres away, and then we drove to Amiens and the aire here, just outside the camp site but half the price.

The Swan Whisperer went to explore the area, and I got supper, and now just lazing around until bedtime. A very moving day.

July holiday, 24 July

It wasn't the road traffic that kept us awake, it was the seagulls at 4:00 am, and the pigeons at 5:00!  We got up about 7, and the Swan Whisperer went for a run while I got dressed and breakfast. When we had cleared up, we caught a bus into Whitstable and went to the service at the Baptist Church, where the Daughter's Godmother's husband is the minister.  Lovely service except we sang "Teach me to dance", which i like, but is such an earworm!

After this, we caught the bus back to the motor home and had lunch, and then set off for Folkestone. We soon realised we were going to be far too early, which they do ask you not to be, so we parked in a Forestry Commission car park and the SW went for a walk. We had been told there would be a wait of about 30 minutes to check in and then a delay of about an hour before crossing, and that was pretty accurate, but we got across at last and drove down to Arras. The aire we had hoped to park in was full, but there is on-street parking, so we have parked up across the road from it.  And are having supper and then what will be an early night by UK standards, but France is, of course an hour ahead.

July holiday, 23 July

We slept well in the aire in Canterbury last night, and were up betimes in the morning.  We set off about 10. First stop Halfords for more loo chemical, and we also bought a clip-on bin for the van. We then drove down to the former airport at Manston to the Spitfire and Halifax Memorial Museum as we had planned to spend the night there and wanted to see if it was gated (it isn't).  We visited the museum and had lunch in the café there, very nice, and then the Swan Whisperer went to the RAF museum in the same site while I had a nap. 

The Daughter's godmother lives in Whitstable, and when she heard we were in the area, she invited us over. They were busy all day but told us where to look for parking and we arranged to meet in the evening. In the end, we found a long-stay car park where we could park overnight, and we had our supper and then she came to meet us and walked us back to her house along the sea front.  We spent a very pleasant couple of hours with her and her husband, and then they walked us back to where it was just half a mile or so along the road to the car park.

July holiday, 21 and 22 July

We decided to profit from the daughter's being away next week to have a short holiday ourselves. But by the time we decided, all off-peak and most peak crossings were fully booked until Sunday evening. But we decided to have a few days in Kent, as although we pass through it often enough, it's not really a place we know.

We set off at about 7:30 last evening, to spend the first night at a café (a former Little Chef, now independent) at Gate Services, where they said you could spend the night.  It advertised itself as being open until 10:00 but was firmly closing when we arrived just after 9.  We were not impressed (managed to get junk food in the petrol station which was open 24 hours), and less so this morning when they served instant coffee with breakfast!  I could have sent it back and asked for a cafetière instead, but life was too short.  And they ran out of mushrooms so we couldn't have them in our breakfast. Very unimpressed.

We moved in to the New Dover Road Park and Ride outside Canterbury, which has a proper motorhome aire, so rare in this country. It is very crowded, but hey...  And after lunch we caught the bus into Canterbury. We had a good walk along the main shopping drag and up to a farmers market place near the West station, which had been recommended to me by Abbeybufo. We bought some strawberries and some cherry tomatoes, and also an ice each - I had brown bread ice cream (yummy) and the Swan Whisperer had coffee. 

We walked back into town a slightly different way and went to the Cathedral, which was wonderful. I've never met a cathedral in so many levels before, and we saw where Thomas a Beckett had been murdered. When I was little, I'd thought it was at the pub that bears his name in Broadwater, where my brother's school had lunch each day, and was so disappointed when I learnt it was miles away.... But I've seen it now.  And the rest of the Cathedral. I know I post nothing but photos of cathedrals, it seems, but no two are alike....

Then a much-needed cup of tea, and back to the Park and Ride, where we are enjoying a drink before I get supper.

TfL Transported by Design

On summer Sundays, Regent Street is apt to close for special events.  Two years ago, there was the Bus Cavalcade, and today there was the Transported by Design exhibition.

There are some excellent photos on the BBC report of the event.

Two years ago, The Boy was not quite four and Boy Too was about 9 months.  Now he is nearly 6 and his brother is 2 3/4.  It makes a huge difference - Boy Too was loving the exhibits, especially the ones he could climb on or get into, while The Boy was able to read the captions and generally realise far more what was happening than that someone had put all these buses there for his pleasure.

I didn't enjoy the exhibition as much as I'd liked the Bus Cavalcade.  There were several old buses, a tube carriage ("The same as the one in the Transport Museum" said The Boy - it probably was that one) and a couple of taxis, but after that it was rather more static exhibitions about the present and the future of transport design.  The most popular - from the boys' point of view, anyway - was a giant London train set, with Tower Bridges, buses, and Underground trains.  Both boys were promptly absorbed, and the Daughter worried about an exit strategy, but in the event Boy Too is learning to do without nappies and didn't quite make it ("I'm all wet!" he said, ecstatically), and once he had been put in dry clothes, The Boy came away very cheerfully, with no sulking.

There were also things you could colour in, and people giving out free yo-yos and boxes of peppermints, and endless stickers.  And various concession stalls.  "Frozen yoghurt!" said the Boy, blissfully, but we pointed out that there were six of us (Mrs Rev had joined us for the afternoon, lovely to see her) and it would be too expensive.  I noticed the Swan Whisperer eyeing the ice pops stall thoughtfully, but again, probably too expensive if you bought one for all of us.

But I don't think any of us were really sorry to arrive at Oxford Circus and meet the boys' father who had come to join them.  And The Boy went into one last tent to do one last colouring, and we went our separate ways.

June Holiday: 22 June

It was overcast in Calais when we woke, but shaping up to be a lovely day. We got up quite early as we had been warned that extra security measures were in place at the terminal.

However, I had been unable to get any citrus tea in Auchan, so did a quick dash into Carrefour to see if they had some, which they did, also any lavender honey shower gel, which they didn't (but they did have a shower gel version of my current favourite shampoo) and a baguette for lunch.  Once that was all put away, we went to the terminal, and although the letter on the hangar was for the 10:50 crossing we were waved through and got on the 10:20, so, with the hour's time difference we were home in time to empty the van before lunch!

June Holiday: 21 June

Driving. All day.  We had about 700 km to go, from the far side of Frankfurt to Cité Europe. 

So we set off at about 09:15 and stopped for coffee a couple of hours later, and for lunch, and to ship the Auchan at Grand Synthe, near Dunkerque. And finally arrived here about 20:15. We took ourselves out to dinner at one of the long-standing restaurants in the Cité, which was good, and are now enjoying the quietness! 

I did manage to doze for a lot of the drive, but am still tired.  Still, we knew it would be like this, and it was worth it.