Tapp's Travels

LAST YEAR!

You will have heard of prequels or first chapters of books to come… well, this starts with a sort of “post-prequel”. The first instalment of the messages which weren’t actually written covering our last year’s escapades in France. And I’ve written it so I’m going to send it anyway – having kept if for twelve months!  So…

We’re off again! This time to France with caravan (and a stressed Glenda). Our plans are detailed and well developed. First, catch the ferry – then worry about where we are going to go! (Remember, this was 2017.) After last year’s holiday extension, we left home in plenty of time. Two days to drive 140 miles seemed adequate and indeed it was! We called in at Jeremy’s for a couple of nights with the van left all alone in a little CS 200 yards away.

We arrived at the docks just before the check in gates opened! And an hour later Barry and Sybil pitched up immediately behind us in the queue. Some people really cut things fine!

The Normandie sports a rather nice restaurant and the hors d’oeuvres buffet followed by the dessert buffet was a good choice (made by Glenda). Her puddings fed four of us very adequately!

Our campsite in Ouistraham was 1 mile from the ferry – and it took Camping Cheques! Bonus! The Kitsons were conveniently located 20 miles away. They rang after we’d gone to sleep to say that they had arrived and that the owner of their site had bought ours and was building a swimming pool and making other (much needed) improvements.

We are woken the next morning by a concrete mixer lorry delivering concrete for the said pool – which we discovered, in the light of day, to be two pitches away from where we came to rest the previous night! Peaceful breakfast!

John was heading to Burgundy via Gien a nice site on the banks of the Loire. Glenda wanted to go to Chinon, Saumur and really more or less anywhere other than Burgundy. This discussion continued all morning until we were approaching Chartres. By this time we had tangled with more lorries avoiding Paris than you could shake a stick at. Furthermore, serious road works had cost us best part of an hour going nowhere fast. We had also travelled so far East that we were more or less committed (Glenda says he should be!) to John’s plan. Except now the Gien site was ruled out by the navigator because it was too far south.

A timely restaurant with large car park – and there are precious few of these on this route – allowed us a break and a think… It was 3 pm and the Lac de Panthier site was still 270 miles away to the East! Big country, France! The only possible way to get there before midnight was via the Autoroutes. Peage! Yuk! We need to charge all French drivers for the use of our motorways!

True to form, Glenda’s techno-phobic fingers couldn’t get the machine to issue us a ticket. The queue built up nicely behind us and they broke out their picnics while they waited… Eventually we got one to much cheering behind and off we went!

Eleven miles down the A10, just North of Orleans, there was a horrible accident. There was a huge helicopter on the carriageway along with fire engines, police and ambulances. There was also a three-lane car park at least 10 miles long. Fortunately for us it was on the other side of the road. Otherwise we wouldn’t have made Burgundy this side of June.

Glenda slept most of the way but was very pleased when I couldn’t get the ticket into the machine to pay! Personally I think it was because it was her ticket!!! So we jammed the autoroute tolls for a second time in less than 4 hours! The car behind had followed all the way from Orleans and so knew to get the coffee on straight away!

Anyway – and this is where the original message got a bit tangled waiting editing – we phoned ahead and booked a lake-front pitch. We got there without much drama and got established. Still great views from the site. But everywhere seems much busier than we remembered. And somehow less well tended. Weeds growing everywhere and hedges needing trimming. And there were dozens of youngsters on and in the lake learning stand-up paddleboarding and generally having a good time in the water – and making a regular din. Not so peaceful as we remembered! After a couple of hours, the bathers left – only to be replaced by workers noisily blowing the dust off the side of the road so they could paint a yellow line with a noisy engine-driven, yellow-line-painting machine. After that peace resumed.

Briefly! The site was invaded at 7.30 am by 300+ (and that’s a real estimate) school children for a team biathlon. The perishers were everywhere on their bikes. In the evening, after their race, there was a dinner in a big marquee for them all. Their rowdy games were only stopped by a superb thunderstorm. We love thunder and lightning – but 8 pm would have been better than 9 pm! Just saying!

Breakfast for 300 was another noisy event but then they started filtering away to be replaced by three council workmen with strimmers cutting the grass on the lakeside! We went for a bike ride on the canal towpath. This is what we came for.

… after that we had another eight week of fun and games which went – and remains – largely unrecorded.

So much for 2017 now it’s next year already.

If you still want to hear about our adventures, that is!