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25 February 2023

Early spring holiday, 25 February 2023

La-Chapelle-sur-Erdre, Nantes. 
One of the nicest things about a motorhome holiday is that one can change plans on the fly! We had a long drive ahead of us today, and had planned to set off fairly soon after breakfast, but my brother said that while we were in the area, we should visit Crepon, where our father's regiment (not sure which one he was in) had mustered after landing in Normandy, and also the place where he did land. Not on D-day itself, I believe, but a couple of days afterwards. 

So we did. We were a bit later setting off than we would have liked, as we didn't really wake until 07:30 and for some reason the hot water hadn't come on properly. And I was a bit slow about getting up, so it was about 10 before we got away, if not later. And I needed to shop so we went via a large Carrefour, which further delayed us. 

Crepon was lovely, a very pretty village (photos on Facebook), and there was a memorial, presumably at the muster point. We enjoyed a rather cold walk around the village (Idiot me forgot to record it!), and then headed north up the road Daddy would have come south on, to the place where he landed. "I told you it was bleak," said my brother when I sent him a photo. All the same, I doubt it was sleeting that June day so long ago, although I do know it was rough and Daddy had been seasick! 

We then drove on to Arromanches, and parked up looking out over the sea at the remains of the Mulberry harbour, which you couldn't see as much of as you could in December 2014 when we were last there, probably because the tide was in.

By the time we had had lunch it was going to be well after 18:00 before we arrived at the place where we had planned to spend the night, so we retrenched a bit and are now just outside Nantes in a very nice aire by a cemetery. We are the only people here, it is free, and the services are not locked out of use for the winter! They are also free. Brilliant! However, this does mean a long drive tomorrow, but we plan to get away early and stop by noon for church (on livestream) and lunch, and then drive again in the afternoon. I don't need to shop tomorrow, although if there is a bakery in reasonable running distance I might make the SW get croissants! 

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