Autumn Holiday, 28-29 September 2026

Landrecies, Hauts-de-France

In hindsight (always a wonderful thing), we would have done better to have gone down to Sussex on Saturday afternoon and brought the WoMo back to London then, although we don't like doing that now. The Swan Whisperer had an appointment at 15:50 yesterday afternoon, but the hospital rang up to say that the clinic started at 14:00 and he should get there then, but to bring a book as it might be very busy. So in the morning we finished packing and loaded up the car as far as possible, leaving the fridge stuff until later, and after a quick lunch, the SW went off while I did one or two last things like washing up lunch and so on. He rang up very soon to say it was done, and he was on his way home, so I packed up the fridge and then made myself a cup of tea. I regretted this by the time we were half way to Sussex, so the SW dropped me off at the start of the close that leads to No 6, and I ran in while he took the car up to the garage and exchanged it for the WoMo. 

We spent awhile getting organised, and the SW washed pigeon poo off the skylight, and then we hotted up the chicken casserole we had brought with us, and sat and enjoyed Quiz Night on television before an early-Ish night. 

This morning, we set the alarm for 05:30 so we could enjoy a cup of tea before heading off; we got away about 07:15, and ate a banana en route to keep us going. When we got to Folkestone, we had half an hour to wait so we went into the terminal and ordered a "Big breakfast roll" from one of the food outlets. This was big indeed - a rasher of extremely nice back bacon, a whole Cumberland sausage spiral and a fried egg inside a large white bap! Both of us left half our sausage for later, and I only ate half my bap. 

When we arrived in Calais, our first stop was petrol, as we think Total Energies must be subsidised at the moment; their diesel is about 12 cents a litre cheaper than anywhere else - very unusual - and a bit cheaper than in the UK. So we stopped at the petrol station at the exit from the Shuttle and filled up before heading to Cité Europe where I did a shopping. Although it was lunchtime, neither of us, unsurprisingly, was hungry, so we set off for our planned overnight stop, a campsite in Guise. We decided we would stop in Landrecies, where we have been before, to have something to eat (the rest of the sausage and our first-day patisseries, and the SW ate the other half of my bap). However, although I had E-mailed the campsite, I had not heard back from them, so as nobody was expecting us, we decided to stay here overnight. There are no services, but we don't need them, and it is free! 

We decided to go for a walk round the town, and found there was a self-guided tour available of the walls, but there were no walls so much of it was rather dull, just signs saying that there had used to be a wall here, or a gate there. I think they had been destroyed in 1918, when the town had to be evacuated, and were never rebuilt. 

Now back at the WoMo, we don't really want much supper, but are having salmon with lemon butter sauce and cauliflower! 

Nice Day for It exhibition, 21 August 2026

 Yesterday I read on IanVisits about this exhibition at Photofusion in Brixton, and, as I hadn't had enough exercise today, I decided to visit it this afternoon.  

Well, I got my step count in, and that's about all you can say for it!  Read Ian's article (linked above) and you won't need to visit the exhibition, since almost all the photos are shown!  It is in a very small room, with photos on the walls all round and a display case of postcards, mostly from Butlin's.  As these are under glass, they are quite difficult to see.  There was an explanatory panel just outside the door:

and then this was basically the exhibition:

It was never touted as being anything large, but I honestly didn't find it that interesting!  Oh well, it was free and in walking distance, and got me out of the flat!  And I did like this gentleman:

Day Trippers! 6 August 2026

 Didn't we have a lovely time, the day we went to Bangor....  Well, Bangor is a bit far away for a day trip, but C2C are offering £15 returns to Southend-on-Sea during August, so we decided to take advantage of this, as neither of us had ever been to Southend.

Neither of us had ever caught a train at Fenchurch Street Station before, nor do I think either of us had been on a C2C train.  Not that they are any different from any other commuter-type train in this country these days, although slightly more comfortable than most.

We had to collect our tickets from the station - they do do e-tickets, but I think you had to buy them on the app, which I ended up downloading anyway to get accurate timetables.  I had bought them via their website, so was issued a code.  We arrived at a side entrance to the station (Northern Line to Bank, then Monument to Tower Hill and a short walk - I thought Bank and Monument were linked underground, but it appears not to be the case.), and the one and only ticket machine was being used by a couple of people who were having trouble with it.  I went to the kiosk, which was staffed, and was issued our tickets no problem - I gather the machine was misbehaving.

The next train was leaving in a couple of minutes, so we got on it and about an hour later arrived at Southend Central, from where it was only a short walk down to the pier.  We decided to buy tickets for the pier railway, and were lucky enough that they held the train for us, or we'd have had to have waited half an hour for the next one.  The little train - a narrow-gauge railway - crawls along to the end of the pier.  The carriages are enclosed, with sideways bench seats.  Many years ago, there used to be a similar railway along the pier at Walton-on-the-Naze, which we took many times when we holidayed there in the 1960s, but that, I think, had open carriages and has long since demised.  I gather this one did close for awhile, but reopened.  

At the end of the pier, we had a lovely walk round.  The pier pokes out into the Thames Estuary, and we could see the Maunsell Sea Forts on the horizon, as well as watching a container ship come downriver (from Tilbury, we assumed) and head out to sea.  We also visited the lifeboats, and I bought a packet of rhubarb crumble biscuits for the Swan Whisperer, as it's all in a good cause. Lots of photos on Facebook, of course.

Then it was time to catch the train back to the town, which we did with rather less haste and more decorum than we had the outbound one!  And it was lunchtime.

There is really only one thing you can eat when on a day trip to the seaside and that is, of course, fish and chips.  The main road was lined with chippies, and we patronised one where a waitress was standing outside offering the menu.  We could, we discovered later, have found cheaper elsewhere, but it didn't really matter, as the cod and chips were excellent!  I couldn't eat all my chips, but had a jolly good try!  I drank fizzy water, and the Swan Whisperer had a 7-Up!  

After lunch, we made ourselves comfortable and then went for a short walk towards a building that we could see some distance away, which turned out to be the old Kursaal.  I gather this may reopen - it certainly looked far from abandoned and derelict, but we decided that was probably far enough to walk, so turned back and walked along the prom (prom-prom, but there wasn't a brass band going tiddley-om-pom-pom) back to where we could get an ice-cream - a 99 for the SW, and a scoop of rum and raisin for me, and then we walked back to the station.  We had discovered, on the way out, that there was a slightly different route we could go back, which went past Tilbury, so we got that, although we couldn't see very much of the port as the hedges were too high.  Then we walked to a 35 bus stop, and had to wait rather a long time for a 35, but one came in the end and we sat on that all the way home, a quick dash into Lidl to get some necessary staples, and then home and flaking out!  

Oh I do like to be beside the sea side...

Summer Holiday 18-20 July 2026

Brixton, London, UK

I haven't blogged over the weekend because most of it wasn't that interesting, so I thought I'd concatenate the days.

On Saturday morning, we were actually ready about 15 minutes before we needed to leave, but after visiting the services we decided to get to Le Shuttle anyway, and they didn't turn us away! In fact, they offered us a crossing on the 10:20 - we had booked on the 11:36, so we said yes please, and, although there were long queues at passport control (what with the new EES and ETA systems being implemented, although at the moment Le Shuttle's French passport officers only scan your passports and don't require fingerprints and photographs, but they do take their own sweet time about it), but in the event we got on the 10:04! I don't know why we count getting on an earlier crossing as a win, but we always do, and as the service had been seriously disrupted the previous day, I wasn't too sure whether we would be able to get an earlier one.

So we drove straight to No 6, where we spent the rest of the day. My sister decided to profit from our being there to spend the night with her partner, but she and Mum agreed it was fine if we slept in the motor home, so we did. In the morning, I helped my mother dress (not that she really needs much help, but she does like someone there when she gets out of the shower, and someone to put cream on her back, which I think is just an excuse for a daily backrub!).  We took her to church, which was lovely - my sister had already taken her wheelchair over to the barn where the dance was to be held, so she had to totter up the path with her walker, which she did rather well, we thought.  After the service, we went back to No 6, and it wasn't long before we had to load up the car with our folding chairs and table, various drinks, glasses, Mum's walker and Mum herself, and drive over to the barn.

The dance was great! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; I didn't dance every dance, but did dance a fair few of them, unlike last year.  Last year I'd thought I'd be exhausted if I danced, but I was exhausted anyway, so decided I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat.... and, in fact, was fine.

My sister and her partner were rather disappointed with the turnout from the villages, most people there being friends or family, and are swearing Never Again.  As my sister said, after last year, so many people said it had been fun and could we do it again, but then didn't come.  Mind you, there is a difference between a birthday party - which last year's was, to celebrate my sister's 60th - and the fundraiser that this year's was.  People apparently didn't want to pay £20 towards the cost, with any surplus going to church funds!  All the same, they missed a good time. My sister grabbed Mum's wheelchair for the last dance, and danced her in it!  I thought she'd have needed a seat-belt!

Then back to No 6, and a couple of hours to relax before we started to load the car with almost everything except the stuff in the fridge and the stuff we'd need overnight, and spent our last night, for now, in the motor home.  Up shortly after six, and were away by about 09:10; a very easy journey home that took much less than the 2 hours we have learnt to allow for it.  Almost all the traffic lights seemed to turn green just as we arrived at them! Unpacking, lunch, then I sat down in my armchair and slept for two hours! I don't know why unpacking is so exhausting, but I always find it so.

So that's it until the end of September for the motor home. There may or may not be other adventures in the meantime....

Summer Holiday, 17 July 2026

Blériot-Plage, Hauts-de-France, France

Did feel a lot better this morning - still not 100% sure I'm not getting a cold, but a good night's sleep did help. So after breakfast I popped into the Aldi, which was just next door to our overnight stop (which we discovered, when we went up to the services, had much nicer places further up in the aire, but I think they may have all been taken last night). Anyway, Aldi only had Cristal beer (my current favourite Belgian beer that I only discovered at the start of this holiday) in tins, and when it came to the checkouts, the queues were so massive that I didn't bother.

We decided that, because we were in no hurry to get to Calais, we would drive south along the Belgian coast, following the tram between Knokke and De Paan. It's a pretty amazing line - now in a dedicated space, now running along the street, and even, in one place, running through woods and sand dunes! The road - the N34 - crosses it eleventy billion times, so sometimes it's on your right, sometimes on your left, and sometimes you're right on top of it. I think it's now on my bucket-list. Almost all the trains went the whole way, but there seems to be a separate branch to Ostende. The road goes through Zeebrugge, and there was a cruise ship in the harbour, which was rather nice.  Not a that I really fancy going on one of those huge modern cruise jobs, but they are still interesting to see. 

We stopped once for lunch, rather early but the Swan Whisperer wanted to scramble up the dunes and look at the sea, and I badly needed to spend a penny, and by the time we'd done that, it was pretty well lunchtime. We stopped again for diesel somewhere in the Ostende area - forget exactly where - and then carried on down the N34 until E reached De Paan, and then got on to the A16 as we crossed the border into France, and it was only about half an hour from there to Cité Europe. 

As we crossed the border, all the variable message signs were saying you must have an ETA to travel to the UK, but we were quickly able to reassure ourselves that this was for visitors, not natives! I also found out that it doesn't apply to Irish passports, so my daughter and grandsons don't need to worry. 

I did a shopping in the big Carrefour, while the SW put on a load of washing in the facilities they provide in the car park. We had to wait while other people's washing and drying finished, but ours got done in the end. Meanwhile I had kindly bought liver for supper, which the Swan Whisperer loves. I don't know why it is so difficult to get in the UK - it's not my best thing, but this was surprisingly nice, served with mashed potato, cabbage (I didn't have time to do a more sophisticated vegetable) and a sauce made by deglazing the pan in which I'd cooked the liver with tomato paste, garlic paste, and the water over which I'd steamed the potatoes and cabbage (seasoned up, of course). It was surpringly good. Followed by the end of the redcurrants with yoghurt. 

We had, of course, moved up to the aire here at Blériot-Plage - the next-door campsite is fully open as it is July - and we are ready to cross tomorrow morning. We will head to the terminal for about 09:45, and hope to get a crossing earlier than the one we booked on, but there have been disruptions today, so we may not.

But, for once, this isn't the end of our adventures, as we are spending the weekend in Sussex to attend a Barn Dance on Sunday afternoon in aid of the local church. We had planned to go back to London on Sunday evening, but it would be a logistical nightmare to get to the dance - across the fields from No 6 - and load the car, and, etc, so we think we'll head back to town very early on Monday morning, getting the car as loaded as possible, with just overnight things to pack on Monday morning.

Summer Holiday, 16 July 2026

Melsele, East Flanders, Belgium

I had hoped to go for an explore this morning, but found myself incredibly tired and sleepy, and a bit headachy, so didn't. 

After breakfast, we tried to go to the nearest REWE, but a fat finger on the Satnav screen meant it took us to the middle of nowhere, so we had to retrace our steps. 

We found the REWE in the end, and I did a Last Shop in Germany, and then we headed on through Holland (Dutch motorways are horrid - 2 lanes, 100 kph, very crowded). Then the Satnav wouldn't talk to my phone so we couldn't find out about traffic jams. I switched both devices off and on again when we stopped for lunch, and eventually they grudgingly agreed they could see each other, so that was all right. 

It was not long before we were in Belgium - motorway speed 120 kph, somehow much more comfortable. Of course it was very slow going past Antwerp, but we got here in the end - and then couldn't find the place, the Satnav having done its usual trick when it is cross with us, and taken us to the back of it! But we got here in the end. Not very nice, just the back of a row of garages, but it does the job, and we have electricity and there are services. 

The Swan Whisperer went for a walk, but found that what he had thought was going to be a lovely historic monument turned out to be a military barracks, so he had to come äway. I've been lying down and dozing, and slightly wondering if I'm getting a cold. I hope not! It may just be that I haven't slept very well these past two nights. 

No photos today, so here is my favourite from yesterday - swifts darting about and screaming! 

Summer Holiday, 15 July 2026

Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

Well, I don't know whether St Swithun works in Germany as he does at home, but if he does, they are in for a wonderful summer - warm, but not desperately hot, with a cool breeze! 

In fact, when I got up this morning, I was almost chilled after my shower - I had the first shower, as the Swan Whisperer had (needless to say!) gone for a run. But when I had finished my breakfast and my coffee, I went out to explore. 

Bückeburg is one of those lovely little German towns that nobody has ever heard of, but well worth visiting. We really liked the aire, which was plain but serviceable - one paid for electricity and for water, but other than that, it was fine. It was situated on the edge of the park, in which there is a large Schloß,

and the town itself is lovely, with an ornate church, a Gothic Rathaus, complete with integral brewery, and some lovely buildings. The Swan Whisperer joined me, and our walk was rather longer than we'd planned, as we missed a rather obvious (in hindsight) shortcut and ended up walking all round the park! Oh well, all good exercise. The local Old People's Home were also out for their constitutionals, complete with Zimmer Frames and carers! There will be photospam on Facebook, although not of the Zimmer framers. You Have Been Warned! 

Then it was time to move on. The SW had bought rolls for lunch on his run, so I didn't need to shop, and, apart from stopping for horrendously expensive diesel (it is cheaper in both Belgium and France, so he only bought 1/2 tankful) and again for lunch once we were on the motorway, we came straight here to Oberhausen, which is one of the towns on the Ruhr. 

We decided to take a slightly longer route as I, for one, am sick of the A2, and were routed via Osnabruck and Dortmund. Tonight is our last night in Germany. This aire ought to be very nice, but someone has taken our booked place, which meant we took someone else's, and the people in our place aren't there - fortunately the very nice woman whose place we had taken rang the management, who gave her another pitch, so that was all right. But there is a very busy railway-line just feet away - I hope it won't keep us awake all night! For some reason the trains seem extra-loud, but I daresay they won't once I've taken my hearing-aids out!