I suppose because most of the French had gone back to work today, the weather was absolutely glorious, a complete change from yesterday! Bright sunshine and warm enough just to wear a t-shirt with no other layers.
We set off about 9:30, and our first stop was Carrefour again, this time to buy tissues (I have really bad hay fever this year, or maybe it's a cold, but I think hay fever), some plastic bags to nick food from breakfast in, and a 3-way adapter so we can have more than one thing at a time. That done, we set off for a little village called Véron, just outside Sens, and home to FranceMotorhomeHire, a company which does exactly what it says on the tin, run by English people. Who couldn't have been more friendly and helpful. We explained that the Swan Whisperer had just retired and that we were looking to buy a motor home sooner or later, and they were very helpful as we discussed the pros and cons of having one registered in France and keeping it there, or in the UK and keeping it there..... and what sort of vehicle we might want. I like their basic vehicle, but would feel very daunted driving one. We might hire one of theirs sometime to see what it is like.
Anyway, after that we drove down to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, which was absolutely lovely - an old walled town by the (rather flooded) Yonne. We stopped at the tourist office to ask about parking, and they kindly gave us a brochure about the town which described the best route to go and see the sights. But I do wish we'd taken one in French - the English version had obviously been done by Google translate, and was, in parts, utterly incomprehensible! Which, I suppose, in some ways added to the enjoyment!
We had a lovely walk round the town, and by the time we'd finished it was nearly lunchtime, so I suggested we drove up into the hills above the town, on the very minor roads shown on the atlas, where it looked as though there might be some nice places to stop. And, indeed, there were. The only snag was, when we found a nice parking space, at the entrance to one of the forests the French are so good at, we also found we'd forgotten the bread! So Plan B was put into action and we drove sadly back down into the town of Joigny to an Intermarché we had passed en route to buy bread, but as there was a bistro there, we decided to have lunch there, and to have a picnic meal this evening. So we ate - I had an omelette, and stupidly ordered chips with it when I could have had salad or green beans, as the omelette itself had potato in it, and I couldn't finish the chips. But it was very nice! Potato and bacon, I think. Anyway, we bought some bread, and some yoghurt for supper pudding, and then had a very pleasant drive around the minor roads in the area, which is very hilly. The main crops appear to be oilseed rape, barley and wheat, but there were vines on the hills above Joigny and Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. And so back to the hotel, where I did some work, but the Internet connection is a bit flaky. The Swan Whisperer has gone out for a walk, and I am catching up!
I have uploaded pictures to Facebook (having got a WiFi code for my phone to do so), but Google is being slow about knowing they are there, so I'm not posting any on here today.
04 May 2015
May holiday day 2: Sens in the rain.
Yesterday was a very wet day. It rained. All day. Until bedtime, when the skies cleared and there was a beautiful full moon.
However, we are not made of sugar, so after a late breakfast, we set out to see what we could see. First of all, we went to the local Carrefour, which is open on Sunday mornings, to stock up on bread, cheese and sausage for lunch, and then we went off into the town. It was quite difficult to find a parking space, as most of the usual ones are taken up by the Fair, which I shall come to in a minute, but we finally found one just outside the Cathedral gardens, which were lovely (my phone isn't connected to WiFi just now, so I can't show you the photos; they will upload when next it is), and we wandered round them and round the Cathedral, and then went to explore the Fair, which was being held over the Bank Holiday weekend. If you look at a map of Sens, you will see that it had a ring road on the line of the old city walls, much of which appears to be a car park normally. This was all covered with the Fair, which reminded me of the Ideal Home Show, but not so well organised into areas. Everything was on offer, from sweets to bathroom suites, via quad bikes, cranes and beauty creams! Great fun, and a funfair round the north side.
We finally found the car again, and then came back to the hotel for a late lunch and, I regret to say, slept and read our way through the afternoon. We found a creperie in town to have supper at (very nice!), And then back for a relatively early night. With, as I said, clear skies and a full moon.
However, we are not made of sugar, so after a late breakfast, we set out to see what we could see. First of all, we went to the local Carrefour, which is open on Sunday mornings, to stock up on bread, cheese and sausage for lunch, and then we went off into the town. It was quite difficult to find a parking space, as most of the usual ones are taken up by the Fair, which I shall come to in a minute, but we finally found one just outside the Cathedral gardens, which were lovely (my phone isn't connected to WiFi just now, so I can't show you the photos; they will upload when next it is), and we wandered round them and round the Cathedral, and then went to explore the Fair, which was being held over the Bank Holiday weekend. If you look at a map of Sens, you will see that it had a ring road on the line of the old city walls, much of which appears to be a car park normally. This was all covered with the Fair, which reminded me of the Ideal Home Show, but not so well organised into areas. Everything was on offer, from sweets to bathroom suites, via quad bikes, cranes and beauty creams! Great fun, and a funfair round the north side.
We finally found the car again, and then came back to the hotel for a late lunch and, I regret to say, slept and read our way through the afternoon. We found a creperie in town to have supper at (very nice!), And then back for a relatively early night. With, as I said, clear skies and a full moon.
02 May 2015
May holiday, day 1
As you will know if you are friends with me on Facebook or LiveJournal, the Swan Whisperer retired on Thursday, after over 37 years with the same company. We had been going to go away next Thursday anyway, so I thought we had better go at once, and we are spending a few days in Sens before moving on to Troyes on Thursday. We set off at 11:00 am, and had a really quite easy journey, although it took a long time. A picnic lunch on the train, and one stop for a leg-stretch, and we arrived at the hotel at about 19:25 local time, after a run that took us to the outskirts of Paris and round "Le Francilien" outer ring. The hotel restaurant isn't open at weekends, so we got back in the car and drove into Sens, and found a Buffalo Grill for dinner. And now back and full of steak and wine! Yum!
27 April 2015
Up the A24
I had some shopping to do, including a trip to Lakeland, so decided to head to Wimbledon and shop my way back up the A24. As Lakeland is in the Centre Court shopping centre, it ought to have made sense to go by train, but they were running slow due to an earlier incident, so it took me half an hour longer than it should have done to get there. However, I arrived in the end, and my errand was swiftly done.
It's a long time since I have caught a bus from Wimbledon station to Merton Abbey Sainsbury's, but it hasn't changed! Again, my shopping there was swiftly done, and I caught another bus up the road to Tooting Broadway to finish my shopping in Primark there. When I'd done that, I found I had just missed both a 355 and a 155, so decided to have some lunch. A random Indian restaurants (they are legion in that part of London) yielded a delicious mixed vegetable curry, a naan bread (I could only manage half) and a side salad for just over £5.00, well worth it (the curry tasted as good as it looked, and it looked delicious).
Then I arrived at the bus stop just in time for a 155, which took me as far as Clapham Common. I was very amused to notice that as we passed Tooting Bec and Balham, the shops got progressively posher and posher as we moved towards Clapham! Even the chains, from Primark and Wilco in Tooting Broadway, to the huge Waitrose in Balham.....it was so noticeable as to be funny. Clapham itself is full of restaurants, of course, and not many shops except Sainsbury's and the usual chains, but Clapham South is definitely Nappy Valley!
It's a long time since I have caught a bus from Wimbledon station to Merton Abbey Sainsbury's, but it hasn't changed! Again, my shopping there was swiftly done, and I caught another bus up the road to Tooting Broadway to finish my shopping in Primark there. When I'd done that, I found I had just missed both a 355 and a 155, so decided to have some lunch. A random Indian restaurants (they are legion in that part of London) yielded a delicious mixed vegetable curry, a naan bread (I could only manage half) and a side salad for just over £5.00, well worth it (the curry tasted as good as it looked, and it looked delicious).
Then I arrived at the bus stop just in time for a 155, which took me as far as Clapham Common. I was very amused to notice that as we passed Tooting Bec and Balham, the shops got progressively posher and posher as we moved towards Clapham! Even the chains, from Primark and Wilco in Tooting Broadway, to the huge Waitrose in Balham.....it was so noticeable as to be funny. Clapham itself is full of restaurants, of course, and not many shops except Sainsbury's and the usual chains, but Clapham South is definitely Nappy Valley!
17 April 2015
Scooters and buses and trains, oh my!
Today was nearly the last day of the Easter Holidays, so I said I would take the Boy out and we would have some fun together.
I picked him up at 8:30 am from Brixton Station - well, as Brixton is rather impossible in the mornings these days, from across the road. Our first port of call was Lidl, to pick up croissants, a pain au chocolat for Granda (aka the Swan Whisperer) and orange juice for a second breakfast. Well, it was my first breakfast, but the Boy's second. He then played here for awhile, and we set out about 10:30, just in time to see the Scissor Lift on its progression round the building to wherever it was wanted today - a very splendid machine. "But it doesn't move very fast!"
Then we got a bus to Herne Hill Station and just caught a Thameslink train by the skin of our teeth, which took us to City Thameslink, where we got out. We walked down Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street, until we got to the entrance to the Temple Inns of Court, which we explored a bit. We couldn't look into the Church, because it was closed due to the Globe Theatre's production of King John there, but we enjoyed the Fountain:
We explored a little further and then ended up in the Gardens, by the eponymous Tube station, where I was intrigued by this plaque, and wondered whether Lady Henry Somerset was any kind of relation (only vaguely):
There is an exhibition about hospital troopships in World War I on HMS Wellington, moored opposite, but further exploration showed us it was only open on Sundays and Mondays so we came away and decided to look for Shaun the Sheep instead. But we missed him, somehow, and as we were getting hungry, we went into the Prets by Waterloo Bridge to have lunch. Then we used the facilities in Somerset House, and on the way out, we saw a no 1 bus at the stop, and decided to go wherever it took us. This proved to be to Canada Water.
The Boy nearly gave me a heart-attack by insisting on walking along a wall that got higher and higher, and I said he couldn't possibly get down on his own. "Well, I'll try my easiest!" he said, but I lifted him down anyway, and have adopted that expression for my own use. We were intrigued by an exhibition of tents, which led us into Decathlon, and I bought myself some T-shirts, and - er - accidentally bought The Boy a new scooter. Well, it was only £13.99, it would have been rude not to! And he has outgrown his mini-micro, and now he can ride a bike ("I'm nearly five!" he says, although his birthday isn't until the very end of the summer term) he was having no trouble at all with even the adult-sized scooters in the shop!
We then got on a 188 to go back to his mother's offices at Senate House, but because of the disruption at Kingsway it terminated at Aldwych, and although we got on a 59, it took aaaaaages and aaaaaages to go round the diversion, and even the Boy's notorious love of buses was tried to the limit! So when we got to Senate House, I needed a cup of tea with the Daughter before getting back on a 59 to get home. I'd planned on getting off at Waterloo and going to IKnit, but it was getting late, and I was tired. So it was fish and chips for supper.....
I picked him up at 8:30 am from Brixton Station - well, as Brixton is rather impossible in the mornings these days, from across the road. Our first port of call was Lidl, to pick up croissants, a pain au chocolat for Granda (aka the Swan Whisperer) and orange juice for a second breakfast. Well, it was my first breakfast, but the Boy's second. He then played here for awhile, and we set out about 10:30, just in time to see the Scissor Lift on its progression round the building to wherever it was wanted today - a very splendid machine. "But it doesn't move very fast!"
Then we got a bus to Herne Hill Station and just caught a Thameslink train by the skin of our teeth, which took us to City Thameslink, where we got out. We walked down Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street, until we got to the entrance to the Temple Inns of Court, which we explored a bit. We couldn't look into the Church, because it was closed due to the Globe Theatre's production of King John there, but we enjoyed the Fountain:
There is an exhibition about hospital troopships in World War I on HMS Wellington, moored opposite, but further exploration showed us it was only open on Sundays and Mondays so we came away and decided to look for Shaun the Sheep instead. But we missed him, somehow, and as we were getting hungry, we went into the Prets by Waterloo Bridge to have lunch. Then we used the facilities in Somerset House, and on the way out, we saw a no 1 bus at the stop, and decided to go wherever it took us. This proved to be to Canada Water.
The Boy nearly gave me a heart-attack by insisting on walking along a wall that got higher and higher, and I said he couldn't possibly get down on his own. "Well, I'll try my easiest!" he said, but I lifted him down anyway, and have adopted that expression for my own use. We were intrigued by an exhibition of tents, which led us into Decathlon, and I bought myself some T-shirts, and - er - accidentally bought The Boy a new scooter. Well, it was only £13.99, it would have been rude not to! And he has outgrown his mini-micro, and now he can ride a bike ("I'm nearly five!" he says, although his birthday isn't until the very end of the summer term) he was having no trouble at all with even the adult-sized scooters in the shop!
We then got on a 188 to go back to his mother's offices at Senate House, but because of the disruption at Kingsway it terminated at Aldwych, and although we got on a 59, it took aaaaaages and aaaaaages to go round the diversion, and even the Boy's notorious love of buses was tried to the limit! So when we got to Senate House, I needed a cup of tea with the Daughter before getting back on a 59 to get home. I'd planned on getting off at Waterloo and going to IKnit, but it was getting late, and I was tired. So it was fish and chips for supper.....
14 April 2015
London's Canal Museum
We'd been to the canal museum before, of course, but there was, I discovered, an exhibition about the use of canals on the Western Front, which is what we mainly went to see, as it finished that day.
It was a fascinating exhibition; the Canal du Nord hadn't yet been finished, and it was used as a highway for troops. The allies, as well as the enemy, made use of the canals, to bring food to a starving Belgium, and to move men and matériel. And there were hospital barges, and all sorts. The Royal Engineers played a huge, huge part in keeping the canals going - or sabotaging them, where necessary - and building temporary bridges where these had been destroyed and so on. There was even a secret port built, called Richborough, near Sandwich in Kent, from which barges could be sent across the Channel.
We saw the rest of the museum fairly briefly, and then went to explore the new King's Cross station, pausing for the obligatory shot of Platform 9 3/4:
and the roof of the new entrance area! The Swan Whisperer hadn't really been aware of the refurbishment, so it was all new to him.
It was a fascinating exhibition; the Canal du Nord hadn't yet been finished, and it was used as a highway for troops. The allies, as well as the enemy, made use of the canals, to bring food to a starving Belgium, and to move men and matériel. And there were hospital barges, and all sorts. The Royal Engineers played a huge, huge part in keeping the canals going - or sabotaging them, where necessary - and building temporary bridges where these had been destroyed and so on. There was even a secret port built, called Richborough, near Sandwich in Kent, from which barges could be sent across the Channel.
We saw the rest of the museum fairly briefly, and then went to explore the new King's Cross station, pausing for the obligatory shot of Platform 9 3/4:
30 March 2015
The Ideal Home Show
I seem to have been hibernating rather, but the clocks have gone forward and Spring is just about here, so it's time to be up and about again. And today I decided to take myself to the Ideal Home Show, one of my favourite events in the calendar. I don't go every year these days - can't afford to - but I do love going when I can.
Because of the demise of Earl's Court, it's at Olympia this year; just one stop further on the Overground. I think it's actually nearer public transport than Earl's Court was - it always felt like miles and miles from West Brompton into any of the shows there, whereas this was only a couple of steps. I still am not used to asking for a concessionary ticket, but remembered to do so, and saved £5 on the normal entry. I could - perhaps should - have booked my ticket on-line but there is a booking fee, and by the time you've paid that, you might as well pay on the door. No queue, at 3:00 on a Monday afternoon, and security was minimal - they just glanced into my handbag.
I am not particularly bothered by the show homes or gardens, or by the swathes of furniture and home improvements (although I did go and look at the Insinkerator taps we've ordered for our new kitchen so we won't need a kettle). I do, however, love the general shopping, fashion and beauty and homewares section, and the food section a bit less, but also a must-visit. This year was all about bamboo pillows, at least two different brands. I don't know what is so special about them - I felt one, and it just felt like an ordinary memory foam pillow to me. My present pillow will soon need replacing, maybe next year I might buy one. I did succumb to one or two bits and pieces, including some of my favourite-ever bronzer, and favourite-ever moisturiser, and I also bought a carpet (and other surface) cleaner as our bathroom carpet is Not What It Was. But mostly I wandered around, enjoying the various demonstrations and slightly wishing we already had our new kitchen so I could legitimately indulge in new knives/saucepans/frying pans/a soup maker/other gadgets I don't need.... and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I should have liked a cup of tea, but the café concessions dotted about the place were very expensive, and only used polystyrene cups, which I hate tea out of, so I didn't buy one. And came away, very tired but having had a lovely afternoon!
Because of the demise of Earl's Court, it's at Olympia this year; just one stop further on the Overground. I think it's actually nearer public transport than Earl's Court was - it always felt like miles and miles from West Brompton into any of the shows there, whereas this was only a couple of steps. I still am not used to asking for a concessionary ticket, but remembered to do so, and saved £5 on the normal entry. I could - perhaps should - have booked my ticket on-line but there is a booking fee, and by the time you've paid that, you might as well pay on the door. No queue, at 3:00 on a Monday afternoon, and security was minimal - they just glanced into my handbag.
I am not particularly bothered by the show homes or gardens, or by the swathes of furniture and home improvements (although I did go and look at the Insinkerator taps we've ordered for our new kitchen so we won't need a kettle). I do, however, love the general shopping, fashion and beauty and homewares section, and the food section a bit less, but also a must-visit. This year was all about bamboo pillows, at least two different brands. I don't know what is so special about them - I felt one, and it just felt like an ordinary memory foam pillow to me. My present pillow will soon need replacing, maybe next year I might buy one. I did succumb to one or two bits and pieces, including some of my favourite-ever bronzer, and favourite-ever moisturiser, and I also bought a carpet (and other surface) cleaner as our bathroom carpet is Not What It Was. But mostly I wandered around, enjoying the various demonstrations and slightly wishing we already had our new kitchen so I could legitimately indulge in new knives/saucepans/frying pans/a soup maker/other gadgets I don't need.... and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I should have liked a cup of tea, but the café concessions dotted about the place were very expensive, and only used polystyrene cups, which I hate tea out of, so I didn't buy one. And came away, very tired but having had a lovely afternoon!
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