taraabit

December 15th 2017

On our return today we had travelled 1,313 miles averaging 45mph and consuming 49.5mpg, I hasten to add not in Homer!

We had a pleasant 10 days away thankfully missing the snow that fell on this region, we had a few days of heavy rain but quite a few days of sunshine. We undertook a few tasks, mainly outdoors, mowing the grass, pruning bushes and the laurel hedge and as always applying copious amounts of weed killer. On the whole however we had a relaxing time, did a lot of reading and Michelle almost completed a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

This was the first time that we had visited France together in December, alaways strange to see the trees and bushes bare of leaves. We visited a few of the local towns popping in and out of shops and supermarkets, what was so pleasant was the low key approach to Christmas. There wasn’t excessive in your face decorations, mostly just fir trees or fir branches decorated with ribbons or pretend presents, there wasn’t constant Christmas music being played and Christmas goods were displayed tastefully. What a pleasure after here in the UK where everything seems to start at the beginning of November. The following are a few photos taken over that time there.

December 13th 2017

Last week when we arrived at the French house we noticed that the neighbours rubbish collection service had been upgraded from yellow and black plastic sacs to wheely bins.

Upon enquiring at our neighbours we found that for us to have the same facility we would need to go and collect the bins in person from the depot/dechetterie. This is situated 12 miles away but as we had nothing else pressing to do today we set off to the depot which is situated in a forest about 4 miles from the nearest main road.

When we arrived I explained in faltering French to a very friendly lady what we had come for, she confirmed:

a. we had arrived at the correct place

b. we were entitled to the new bins

c. we couldn’t have them

After a a few minutes confusion we understood that you were only allowed to collect them between 1.30 – 5.30pm and as it was now only 11.15 we were too early, the bins were plainly visible 30metres away and my pleas that we’d driven 20km to get there fell on deaf ears, it’s the “regulations”. Well we all know about regulations don’t we, so we drove home and had lunch.

We returned at 2pm in case there was a rush, to find the office in darkness as the staff I’d spoken to finished at 12.30pm. Thankfully I found an even more helpful lady clad in yellow safety gear who thankfully spoke more English than I do French. She quickly completed the paper work and explained what we could put in the bins, basically the same as the black and yellow sacks. We then went the 30m to the bins and she was quite happy to man handle them into the car for us, but being a gentleman I couldn’t allow her to do all the work herself, especially as 2 bins wouldn’t fit in side by side. However with a little bit of cunning and removing the wheels from one bin so that it would fit inside the other, we had success.

We are now the proud owners of 2 French wheely bins, sadly as we are going back to England tomorrow we will have to wait until next March to try them out, c’est la vie!

December 12th 2017.

After a previous 24 hours of non stop rain we woke up today to blue skies and sunshine and a temperature that rose to 14 degrees in the sunshine.

We decided to visit one of our favourite places St Emilion, we normally visit at least once a year, if we are here in May we go for a meal to celebrate our wedding anniversary otherwise it’s rare that we don’t at some time during the year take guests to visit. Strangely for one reason and another we hadn’t made it yet in 2017, so here was our chance.

St Emilion a World UNESCO heritage site is a small town famous for its wine production and is situated 22miles NE of Bordeaux close to Libourne. It’s history goes back to prehistoric times but it was the Romans who planted the vineyards between the 2nd and 4th century. The town is named after Emilion a monk who in the 8th century settled in a hermitage carved into the rock, the monks who followed him started the commercial wine production.St Emilion is a tourists delight with its beautiful Romanesque architecture and amongst others having wine shops galore, it’s also famous for its macaroons.

Normally my senior shopper spends hours in and out of the clothes and jewellery shops, however virtually all of them were closed, not just for the day, but for up to 4 months, as it said on the shop doors ” we are taking our annual break!” what profit must they make for the rest of the year if they can afford that? Even our favourite restaurant was closed for months. Apart from a small party of English teenagers on a school trip we saw no other tourists.

I’m sure many people have a bucket list of places they would like to go to should funds suddenly appear, one of ours is the hotel in St Emilion, the Hotel Plaisance. Look below at the photos to see why it may remain a pipe dream, the room costs don’t even include breakfast!

December 5th 2017

Travelled exactly 550 miles averaged 54mph and achieved 51.3mpg

We left the UK house at 18.15pm yesterday afternoon and travelled via Portsmouth where at 11pm we boarded the Brittany Ferries “Etretat” to Le Havre. The ferry arrived in Le Havre at 8.30 am French time and we were on the road by 9a.m.

Was it all plain sailing (forgive the nautical pun) no not quite.

Firstly before boarding we were called into the customs shed to be checked, it’s quite normal and usually consists of a look in the boot, a check under the car with a mirror and a look under the bonnet?? But this time they were also pointing to a suitcase/ hold-all/ bag in each car they stopped and you had to carry it into a room off to the side, when in there you had to pass it through an x-ray machine just like an airport and declare you weren’t carrying any guns or knives, OK bizarre but never mind. But then they made me go through the same routine as you do at the airport, empty my pockets, take off my belt etc and walk through a metal detector body scanner WHY? WHY? WHY? If any one was going to be taking anything illegal onboard I’m sure it would be well hidden in the car and as they only check a few vehicles I’m not sure what they hope to achieve.

The journey itself in France went reasonably well, the motorways were very quiet however and very sensibly i’m sure on every road we travelled on there were road works, on ordinary roads resurfacing and on the motorways miles of replacing central crash barriers, still although slower than normal the traffic still flowed reasonably well. Then just before Angouleme whilst travelling through road works at a restricted speed I had to take evasive action and put my foot down to avoid a driver who had started to exit on a slip road and then decided to rejoin the flow of traffic all without signalling. Unfortunately about 100m past this point there was a speed camera and I got flashed doing at least 15kmph over the restricted speed limit. Could be an expensive journey.

We arrived at 4.30pm at the French house with no further incidents, it was 10 degrees and sunny outside, but very cold in the house, we were last here in September and Easter was the last time we had the log fires going. Thirty minutes later we had two log fires roaring away and a couple of convector heaters hooked up, a quiet evening toasting the feet.

December 2nd 2017

This weekend is the annual Worcester Victorian Christmas Street Fair, although it has been going for many years this is the first time we have taken the opportunity to visit. All week we have had cold frosty weather and it seemed suitable to visit an event like this where the whole event was perfumed by the smell of mulled wine or cider if you preferred it, unfortunately the day has been grey, wet and miserable. The smell of cooking pork, sausage, burgers etc was very heady and made the stomach juices work, however with great inner strength we resisted. In fact our total spend was £1.50 for a box of cinnamon biscuits/ spekaloos from a stall manned by people from Kleve a city we visited a couple of years ago, we had a conversation about the features in Kleve, famous for producing one of the wives of Henry 8th.

Will definitely visit again but take the opportunity to go on the Friday when it should be quieter.

Nov 25th 2017

Taking advantage of a cold but sunny day we today visited the National Trust property Moseley Old Hall to the north of Wolverhampton.

The hall was constructed around 1600 and the house was owned by members of the Whitgreave family until 1925 when it the estate was sold, the property and one acre of land was transferred to the NT in 1962. The grounds contain converted farm buildings, a herb garden, topiary, walled garden and a “knot” garden.

It’s claim to fame and historical importance is related to King Charles 2nd. After losing the Battle of Worcester on Sept 3rd 1631 Charles escaped and was on the run with a few loyal aides, after sheltering in several places and spending a night in the Oak Tree at Boscobel House, he made his way during the night to Moseley Old Hall owned by a loyal catholic family. He was greeted by Thomas and Alice Whitgreave and sheltered for two days, much of it in a Priests Hole, a daughter of the Whitgreave’s had permission to travel to Bristol, so Charles left there disguised as a servant and along with John Huddleston a family priest made his way to Bristol. Eventually they made their way to the south coast and escaped to France.

Tap photos to enlarge.

Nov 22nd 2017

It’s a tradition to pay a visit to the Cotswolds around this time every year, firstly because it’s a beautiful part of the country, secondly we like to do some Christmas shopping whilst there and thirdly on this occasion as a pre birthday treat for Michelle who reliably informs me she is 21 on Sunday, I should be so lucky!

Our first visit was to Broadway where we purchased a few items, we then went on to Stow on the Wold where we had lunch in front of a warming log fire followed by an hour visiting shops including the kitchen shop where we bought some extra plates to use on Christmas Day.

From there we visited Evesham and popped into a few charity shops to stock up on some novels and whilst in one I spotted a piece of Poole pottery that Michelle collects, it was a very reasonable price so I bought her that to go with the Anita Harris piece I bought the week before.

It was a very blustery day but at least it was dry and not at all cold, more than can be said for huge swathes of the country, it began to rain as we reached home and gradually over the evening turned into a downpour.

The following are photos taken in Stow and Evesham.

November 14th 2017

We paid this visit to the area with the special intention of visiting our good friend Jimmy who is in a nursing home suffering with Parkinson’s.

Today we were collected from the site by his daughter Geraldine and then joined up with his wife Gwen and other daughter Jacqueline to visit him and take him out for lunch.

Unfortunately we never did get to see the centre of Wigan or the famous “Wigan Pier” so I can’t comment about them, we did however have an extensive drive around the area travelling through:

West Houghton, Chorley, Adlington, Standish and Euxton, not necessarily in that order. We had lunch in a carvery which normally has good views of the beauty spot Rivington, but unfortunately today it was clouded in mist. We were further entertained by Geraldine and husband Simon at their bungalow which is undergoing building work to provide a large extension, it will all be very nice when it’s finished.

Back at Homer for another exciting evening with Master Chef.

Monday 13th November 2017

We are a two hour journey up the M6 from home on a very pleasant Caravan and Motorhome site for 5 vans next to a garden nursery. The choice was determined by our wish to visit friends Gwen and Jimmy and Alison and Peter who live in the area. The owner of the site and adjacent nursery welcomed us warmly and gave us a pack containing info on the facilities and sights to be found in the local area. Pitches are wide and divided by hedges and all the necessary facilities are within 10m.

Peter, Alison and Gwen collected us from the site at 2.30pm and entertained us for the afternoon with a visit to an antiques/ bric a brac centre and during the evening a pleasant meal at an Italian restaurant.

Back at Homer by 8.30pm a quick turn up of the thermostat and we were soon very toasty and I watched the TV for 90mins!

Nov 11th 2017

We aren’t great tv watchers, struggling at times to find anything we want to watch, we don’t do day time tv, we’re not soap fans and don’t get into historical dramas, we often select to turn the tv off for periods of time in the evening. We enjoy reading, doing puzzles and using our ipads, we don’t have a tv in France preferring in the summer to sit outside and listen to the crickets and in the winter stare into the flames as the logs burn in the grate.

However as we want to continue to use Homer throughout the winter months and it’s already getting dark by 4.30pm I decided to fit a tv aerial to Homer so we have an extra choice of entertainment in the evenings. We already have a suitable tv, purchased some time ago from Aldi, so after the usual research on the internet I decided to buy a Maxview Gazelle Pro Omni Directional TV and Radio Aerial. There wasn’t a great variation in prices from the suppliers but in the end I opted to buy one from Rainbow Conversions Ltd and it was duly delivered.

There’s always a slight dread of drilling holes through the shell of the motorhome but it had to be done, so after taking some measurements on the inside I climbed the step ladder, marked out the position to place the template and with a degree of intrepidation drilled the hole. A cry of “I can see light” from my senior DIY assistant reassured me especially when she added “where you wanted the hole!”

The aerial fitted quite quickly to the roof and I did a double belt job of using both the screws provided and Silkaflex adhesive. We attached the leads to the variable signal booster and to the tv and switched on, and no picture. There was power to everything so that wasn’t a concern, so the detective work began, tv taken into house, it worked there, obviously it was the signal from the aerial, I dismantled the cables and found one that wasn’t making proper contact, reconnected everything and eh presto the BBC appeared on the tv. So now we have an extra source of entertainment, the tv has a built in dvd player so we could watch films.

The neighbours who had been watching the activity from their house came over to enquire if I’d been banished to live in Homer!