taraabit

Monday 29th October.

We all had to rise early this morning, Arzu was returning to work after a fortnight’s holiday and Bedia back to school, having to catch the school bus at 8am.

Notice the huge back packs they have to carry back and forth.

We made even closer friendship with Bedia this visit, amazing as we don’t speak a word of each others language! As a result she wanted us to wait at the bus stop with her.

After the bus departed we began our journey at 8.15am, the first 50 miles we did on ordinary German roads joining the motorway at Venlow in Holland, the motorway then took us into Belgium and finally France as we arrived at the Eurotunnel. We had a two hour wait but boarded an earlier train and swiftly we were transported to the Uk.

The M20 was as always a pain because of roadworks, but thankfully we kept moving, only grinding to a halt on the M25 by Heathrow where planes landing kept us occupied. A swift drive up the M40 and M42 saw us arrive home at 7.15pm, ignoring the time difference it took us 12 hours door to door, altogether we travelled 970 miles and averaged 54mpg. We were greeted enthusiastically by Layla and she’d had a great time with our daughter Steph and partner Will.

A sad footnote is that I woke in the night feeling unwell and have spent today rushing back and forth to the toilet spending some time on the big white telephone.

October 28th 2018

We had a slow start to the day yesterday after our long trip on Friday, then after a late brunch we helped Arzu and Wolfgang transport equipment to the venue for his birthday party.

Back at the apartment we changed and went back to the hotel for 5.30 pm.

The first guests began to arrive around 6 pm and when all forty people had turned up Wolfgang thanked everyone by name for being there including us who had travelled all the way from England. Then he and a friend Hugo commenced the evening by playing and singing a few songs before they were joined by daughter Bedia and Arzu who both sang solos.

This was followed by a wonderful hot buffet meal and all evening the drinks were free! Dancing went on for hours with a mixture of music from the 60s and 70s onward and modern Turkish music.

Around midnight we enjoyed a piece of birthday cake and then the night of entertainment continued until 2am.

Needless to say it wasn’t an early start to today and after a late brunch we went for a long walk in the countryside in the bracing autumn air, then Wolfgang and I went back to the hotel and filled our cars with the equipment and presents we had left there the night before.

A quiet relaxing evening finished our day.

Sat 26th October 2018

Over the past few weeks our off spring have announced they would like to spend Christmas with us, something we are more than happy with, so we decided to drive 250 miles to Auchan hypermarket in Dunkirk France to pick up a few things in readiness (joking of course).

We were actually driving 490 miles to Schermbeck in Germany to spend the weekend celebrating our special friend Wolfgang’s 70th birthday.

Wolfgang, his wife Arzu and daughter Bedia always make us super welcome and within minutes of our arrival there was a wonderful spread on the table to refresh us after our journey, I then relaxed watching children’s tv, in German of course, I didn’t understand a word!

It was quite a tiring day, yesterday evening we did an 80 mile return journey to drop Layla off at our daughters as she is dog sitting for us, I then managed 2.5 hours sleep before we left home at 12.30am. The route south was marred by two motorway closures and numerous reductions in lanes open, we were booked on the 6.20am train but arrived early and made the 5.15 one instead.

We had planned to call in at Auchan as it’s only 1 kilometre off route and arrived at 7.45am, it didn’t open until 8.30 am so we had a quiet few minutes rest, from 8.20 onwards people were queuing up to get in. We did a quick whizz round to purchase a few items we wanted and were back on the road at 9.00am European time to finish the next 240miles of our journey.

October 21st 2018

We ended the day yesterday by introducing Alison and Peter to other friends and spending the evening in a hostelry in Kinver so we made the start to the second day a little later.

Peter had requested a visit to Bridgnorth so in warm sunshine we made the short journey there, knowing the town well as we do we were able to take take a walking route that showed the history of the town that was first settled over a thousand years ago.

After we had toured the historical streets and taken a ride on the cliff railway we crossed the modern pedestrian bridge to the railway station the northern terminal of the Severn Valley Railway a heritage steam railway. There was one special buffet train waiting that departed and a regular scheduled train steamed into the station so in twenty minutes we saw some action.

Altogether we spent three and a half hours in Bridgnorth and it was with a degree of sadness that we dropped Alison and Peter back at their motorhome and bid them farewell.

Bostin – Black Country dialect meaning amongst other things “great”

October 21st 2018

We have played host this weekend to our motorhome buddies Alison and Peter, they came down from Lancashire and stayed on a 5 van site in Claverley, a small pretty village in Shropshire.

BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM.

One request Peter and Alison had, was to visit the Black Country Museum at Dudley, we were happy to oblige as it had been quite a few years since we had visited and new buildings and exhibits are regularly added.

Whilst there we met one elderly visitor that was under the impression that the buildings had always been there and it was a well preserved village, we gently explained that the buildings had been transported brick by brick from the local area and rebuilt on site. Having always lived in the area, some of the properties I well remember in their original position. There are a strong team of volunteers who help explain the history plus a paid team. Whilst we were there an amateur group of photographers were snapping away and there were more people dressed up in period costume to give an authentic atmosphere.

We spent an enjoyable four hours at the museum in warm sunshine, there were some buildings we could have given greater time to explore and we didn’t have time to take the narrow boat trip into the limestone caverns.The admission fee isn’t cheap but is valid for 12 months which if you took advantage to return would make it good value, my only complaint was having to pay £3.50 to exit the car park!

More photos:

On the way home we took a small detour and visited a local curiosity a pub that plays tricks on your senses without you needing an alcoholic drink.

October 5th 2018

Earlier this year the TV in Homer refused to work, it wasn’t a great problem to us as we’re not avid TV watchers and in the summer months we wouldn’t bother to watch it, however with the dark nights now looking on the horizon we began to look for a replacement.

Whilst doing some research on the internet last night I discovered there is a show on this weekend at Malvern Three Counties Show Ground and as we had no commitments today we decided to visit.

Parking was free and it cost £5 each to get in, thankfully dogs were welcome and many people were accompanied by their dogs so Layla had a great time meeting loads of dogs.

There were quite a few stands selling secondhand motorhomes and caravans and as always it was interesting to go inside the motorhomes and examine the layouts and equipment, I’m still baffled by leather seats, wouldn’t work for me in high temperatures! We use a drop down bed and were interested looking at the fixed beds, some were extremely difficult to get in and out of. I think Homer is safe for now.

There were lots of stands selling equipment including some selling secondhand gear and by the end of the day we had purchased a small fold up coffee table for use outdoors and then spent some time choosing a TV. We ended up buying a Falcon 19″ ,it has built in blue tooth technology, ultra low power consumption, triple voltage, built in HD satellite decoder, built in free view receiver, built in DVD & CD player, 3 year warranty and it came with a free blue tooth sound bar. Let’s hope we can get a signal wherever we are!

Michelle and Layla tried out an armchair.

Of course all this shopping leaves one in need of refreshments.

October 2nd 2018

We have been back here in the UK for a week now, something of a shock to the system, firstly the shorts were packed away, then the sandals and today I had to succumb to socks, it’s a hard life.

Looking back over our summer break and checking our travel log I found we had travelled 3,724 miles since we had left home on July 31st, we had spent 30 nights in Homer and the rest in our French house. We bought 127 gallons of diesel ranging in price from £1.15 a litre to £1.45 a litre and averaged 28.5 miles to the gallon spending 825 euros in the process.

Since our return we have been asked regularly did we enjoy our holiday, well we certainly enjoyed our time away and all the new wonderful places we visited. I rarely think of it as a holiday, is that a motor homer mind set? I think of it as a voyage, a journey etc. Everyone chooses to spend their leisure time as they wish and friends and family enjoy their trips abroad, lovely resorts and hotels and a time to relax, do motor homers still have some innate urge to be like our nomadic ancestors roaming to pastures new, never settling long in one place.

The title says testing times and the past week certainly has been, firstly the water board have dug up our road to install new mains, it was scheduled to be finished mid October but is still on going with work commencing at 8 am each morning 7 days a week, very restricted access with times of the day when the road is completely closed.

The day after our return I had to go to the doctors for my annual MOT before I could be issued with a repeat prescription, the central heating boiler had to be serviced, the car had to have its rear brakes replaced and then be serviced and MOTd, and Homer has been booked in for his MOT. Busy and expensive return to the UK. We also had to have Layla trimmed as she was beginning resemble a mop.

We hosted a family meal and have now caught up on all the news and future plans.

We also harvested our crop of apples over 25kg and these have been shared between family and friends, with a large portion frozen for pies in the winter, a visit to our allotment yielded root vegetables and for the first time we have successfully grown sweet corn.

Another Autumn activity was to gather “sloes” from the hedgerows and we have now sloe gin and slow vodka gently infusing which should be ready in the new year and help against the bitter winter nights.

Sadly I doubt if we will manage a trip in Homer this month but we hope to be away in November.

September 23rd 2018

It began to rain this morning as we left our overnight stop and then a few miles down the road we found our route to Calais closed for roadworks and ended up having to take a diversion. We went through passport checks quite quickly and we loaded on board a ferry leaving 45 minutes before our scheduled one.

When we arrived at Dover what a welcome back to the UK, it was cold, lashing down with rain, there were strong gusts of wind and most of the M20 was roadworks with a 50mph speed limit, I’d forgotten how poor our road surfaces are until we crashed and bumped our way along. By the time we’d joined the M25 with its stop start traffic I was really regretting returning back.

We had pre booked a stop over on a Camping and Motorhome site at Henley on Thames and took the M4 to get here, thankfully that was a quieter and smoother ride, luckily the rain stopped and it began to brighten up with the sun appearing. The site is approx a mile from the town centre and after we had set ourselves up we went for a walk to the town, unfortunately as it was late afternoon on a Sunday many of the shops were closing, shame as some looked quite interesting. However we enjoyed the walk around and looking at the Thames, I’m pretty certain we will return here in the future for a longer stay.

We both are struggling with the cold temperature after 8 weeks of warmth, as I sit here writing this we have had to put the central heating on in Homer just to be comfortable, I’m still in shorts having not worn trousers since last May, I can see that changing tomorrow. Ah well only 8 months till next summer ☹️

September 22nd 2018

Late last night when I took Layla out for her pre bed time walk she met her first hedgehog, it was quite amusing to watch, she was very gentle and sat watching it, but was mighty confused that it didn’t move and want to play!

At 8 o’clock this morning my son phoned to say he had broken down in a country lane close to where he was living, when I asked what am I supposed to do about it from 300 miles away, he said nothing really just thought I’d let you know as I walk back! It did then occur to him he couldn’t remember where he’d put the contact details for our shared Greenflag membership, so after some time on my ipad I was able to provide him with that info.

Today has been wet all day, ranging from drizzle to heavy showers, it has been the first time in 8 weeks that it has rained during the day and prevented us doing what we would normally do, damn weather so unreliable😂

We walked back up into Montreuile this morning to the Saturday market but the weather had obviously kept some stall holders away and it wasn’t particularly large, we walked around a different area of the town and finished with a few hundred metres along the ramparts where Layla did her no fears of heights act and Michelle repeated her heart attack.

It was only a short drive to tonight’s aire and we drove here along what is known as the Opal coast which must be beautiful in the sunshine, the following two shots are of the coast about 2 miles from where we are, taken through the windscreen.

We decided to celebrate the last night of this trip on French soil by enjoying some Confit de Canard, which is preserved duck, something we both enjoy. However our cheap tin opener we’ve had for years but never used wouldn’t pierce the tin let alone open it. Never mind with a bit of ingenuity and the use of a strong knife and a pair of pliers I was able to extract the duck, I cooked it along with garlic potatoes in our new Remoska oven.

We were able this evening to get the ipad to connect to the BBC so we watched Strictly Come Dancing, the first time we’ve seen a moving image for 8 weeks, normally we read quietly.

Tomorrow all being well we take the ferry back to the UK.

September 21st 2018

Two days ago when were travelling along the coast we read that a storm was about to hit the UK, this info helped us to decide to move further inland and look for a more sheltered spot.

During the night it rained quite heavily and the wind began to blow, thankfully by the time we got up it had stopped but the wind has continued to blow fiercely all day. Homer is tucked into the corner of the campsite, we have high grass banks on two sides of us and a 3m high wall on the third, we are totalled sheltered and have been able to sit outside this afternoon, whilst 50m away the trees are thrashing around in the heavy wind.

We have on two occasions today walked up the steep hill into Montreuile which is a walled citadel/ fortress the walls are built of brick and range from 10 to 30m high inside those, there are other fortifications and moat like structures. It’s possible, and we did, to walk around the 3km ramparts of the walls, there is no wall or fence between the path and the sheer drop of the walls, in today’s wind it was quite nervy at times and Layla constantly walked up to the edge and looked over giving Michelle heart attacks.

Discretion/ fear prevented me taking better photos of the drop!

There are a good selection of small shops, restaurants and hotels in town and we enjoyed a good mooch around buying a couple of nice cakes from the patisserie. The streets are all cobbled which has kept its traditional feel but makes for an awful noise when the cars drive over them.

In the centre of the town is a statue of General Haig, leader of the British army in WW1, the army based its headquarters here during the war and the General stayed in a nearby chateau.