A very long day! We have spent the past week in Sussex, keeping an eye on my mother while my sister and her partner were enjoying their birthdays in Malta. However, I was preaching this morning (you can read the result here, although audio will not be posted until we are home again in a couple of weeks), so we got up early, having loaded as much as we could into the motor home the night before, and we're away shortly after 08:00. We got to the church in plenty of time, and the service went well.
When it was over, we headed more-or-less straight off to Folkestone, stopping at a large Tesco's en route, because yesterday, at our local Tesco's, the Swan Whisperer had bought a pair of trousers and a pair of shorts, both of which he badly needed. However, he failed to get the security tag taken off them, so we went into this one to ask them to do it. Which they did, and while we were stopped we had a quick lunch - I had bought meal deals the previous day - and then headed on again. I think we were offered a crossing 30 minutes earlier than we had booked, but because it took forever to get through French passport control, we ended up on our booked 15:24 after all.
It did feel odd not going straight to Cité Europe straight after getting off the Shuttle, but absolutely no point on a Sunday afternoon - French supermarkets are only open on Sunday mornings, if then. So we drove straight here to Tournai, only stopping when traffic jams on the A25 made that a necessity.
The reason for Tournai is that we had always assumed that it was an industrial city like Lille, but coming home last time we noticed a sign advertising it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So we decided that, next time, we would explore.
We are staying here two nights, but both of us were tired and jaded after a long day in the motor home - I had slept on the M20, but even still. So after supper - this was cold, consisting of a slice of Gala pie each, plus a sweetcorn salad, a couscous salad and some lettuce - there are times when prepared foods are very useful - we set off for a brief explore.
We didn't want to spoil ourselves too much for tomorrow, but enjoyed walking down to the historic centre and back; there is a small supermarket a couple of minutes' walk away, which will be useful in the morning, and then we will go and do a proper explore of the old town!
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