The Bear Blog

September 2014
France trip

My name is Chris Bear and I'm a panda. I've known Hilary my whole life since I was given to her sister Anna for her second Christmas. I think that may be why I'm called Chris. I normally live with Anna and her new husband Sam but I thought I would give them some space after their wedding and spend some time away from the marital home. This was my first campervan holiday and the first time I have spent so long with Hilary and Claire in such a small space. Fortunately they went out most days leaving me to guard the van so I got a bit of peace and quiet.

We caught the ferry from Calais and I'm sure I heard Hilary say that we would be driving south in France to Brittany and onto Bordeaux. After several days we had not even reached Brittany and I was having serious doubts as to whether we'd have time to get to Bordeaux and back again in time to get the ferry home. Between you and me I think it would have been better if Hilary had booked a ferry to a port in Brittany rather than Calais which is miles away. And we had to go on the M25 for the crossing to Calais which was boring. I was relieved when I heard Hilary say to Claire that maybe we should save Bordeaux for another year.

I found that there was plenty of room in the campervan for me, in fact I think I probably had more room in bed than Hilary and Claire because I slept in the pop top most nights. I was also able to have a shower in the sink so didn't have to worry about shower tokens or spiders.

We spent the first few days driving down the French coast, taking in the beaches in Normandy where the soldiers landed on D Day and then we went to Mont St Michel. I enjoyed it there because I was allowed out of the van to explore. I also observed how to play Petanque one lunch time, which is a game a bit like bowls but far more serious.

We stayed on three campsites in Brittany for a few days each. I did not really think much of the first one as I got bitten by loads of mosquitos under my fur on the first day. Hilary got a few bites too but they were nowhere near as bad as mine and you wouldn't believe what a fuss she made about them. For some reason, Claire hardly got bitten at all. I liked the other two campsites better, especially the second one at Le Fret. There was no one else pitched near us and it was like we had our own camp site. And Hilary and Claire kept going out and leaving me in the van with all the wine and beer. They didn't notice me siphoning a bit off here and there although I think they were a bit confused about why I kept falling over in the evening.

Apart from the drinking, my favourite part of the trip was when we went on an adventure near Carnac. I explored a Neolithic burial chamber with some big stones on top of it and then we went to an island on a secret path and only just got back to the mainland before the tide came in. After that we sunbathed on the beach and then I had some wine back at the van.

I also particularly enjoyed the day we went on a bike ride near Le Fret and went to the creperie where I had some Cidre. It was much nicer than that Somerset scrumpy I get at home occasionally.

One thing I wasn't too keen on was doing a kettlebell workout with Hilary. I mean, what's the point of doing a workout on holiday?! It's not exactly relaxing is it? It didn't help that mine was way too heavy and I fell over and it landed on me. It might have been better if I'd stayed off the beer beforehand as well.

I'm very sad to be going home, although I will be going home to Hilary and Claire's house so it will still be a bit like I'm on holiday. I'm hoping that before I go back to live with Anna and Sam again I might get a chance to go away in the campervan for a weekend. Even if there's no alcohol I still think it would be fun.

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Homeward Bound

Friday 26th and Saturday 27th September 2014
France

My birthday!

By the time I'd opened my birthday cards (all two of them - I expect to arrive home to a large pile of them in the porch) and the one present I'd let Claire bring with us, and we'd had showers, packed up, and visited the supermarket to stock up on some particularly nice wine we'd found there, it was 12.00. Which I didn't think was a problem as it was only about a 3 hour drive to Honfleur. But when we got the sat nav going it informed us that it was actually a 4 hour drive so we hurried up and got on the road.

It was hot and sunny and George's air conditioning was still making the horrible noise. Plus, my nose was really tickly and snotty. Then the air con stopped working altogether. I'm still not sure if the tickly nose and the broken air con are linked. We arrived in Honfleur at about 5pm after a break for lunch. First stop was a chemist for me to get some decongestant. The pharmacist didn't speak English but handed over some sort of generic decongestant when I asked for Le Sudafed and sniffed a bit.

We checked in at the only campsite in Honfleur a short while later and spent an hour finishing the rest of the beer and waiting for my tickly nose to settle down. Which it did fortunately. The campsite was by far the least nice of the trip. The only things it had going for it was that it was fairly cheap and only a short walk from the town. Oh, and it did have a really funny poorly translated notice in the ladies toilets warning us not to put our stamps or sanitary towels down the toilet. I'm not sure why they decided to translate tampon (French) to stamp instead of tampon. It shouldn't have been a difficult bit of translating. Maybe an illustration would have been better?

Generally, we have been impressed by the French campsites. They all have plenty of flat pitches, and often have large private pitches with little hedges round them. The showers blocks have been generally cleaner with less spiders than their British counterparts. The prices are pretty good for what you get compared to the UK. The only thing that lets them down is the toilets. Most of them don't provide toilet paper or hand soap, none of them have had seats, some of them have spiders, and one of them gave me a wet foot! But on the whole the sites are better than what we are used to back home.

We walked into town for an end of holiday / birthday dinner. The town is full of restaurants, and I had been warned that they're not particularly cheap by both people who'd recommended Honfleur to me. After a few minutes of wandering round we settled on a quaint looking one on the corner of the square.

We both chose a set menu type thing for €22.50 each, which turned out to be 4 courses! I had mussels, monkfish, cheese and profiteroles and Claire had a cheese and cucumber salad (not sure why as she clearly had food envy), steak, cheese and a ice cream ball thing with nuts on the outside. The food was lovely, we shared a bottle of wine, and even with that the whole bill only came to €60 (£50). So I don't know where the rest of you have been eating but they obviously saw you coming.

We thought Honfleur was a very nice little town, although we would have happily traded some of it's niceness for a better campsite. It is obviously a major stopover for people who are catching a ferry from Calais the next day. We saw more British vehicles there than we've seen the whole time we've been in France.

We waddled back to the van and had a rather restless night due to too much food. This morning I had the second worst shower of the trip (it was free and unlimited but tepid and uncontrollably squirty). We picked up some croissants on the way out of town and then set off for Calais on the motorway.
The drive to Calais was pretty unblogworthy. My nose was OK but I don't know if that was because I'd switched the fan off or I'd taken a precautionary decongestant tablet. We arrived hours early and called in at the Calais Wine Warehouse and bought a few cases of wine with the intention of saving us some money between now and Christmas. That of course depends on our will power in making it last until Christmas.

Driving between the wine warehouse and the port was a bit scary though. My mum had been warning me about all the wannabe illegal immigrants in Calais, and how careful we had to be that we didn't get any stowaways. I thought she was exaggerating, but the roads were lined with people I can only assume we're looking for some transport across the channel. I know you probably think I'm stereotyping, but in this case I'm pretty sure my stereotype was right. There were tents pitched on grass verges and clothes hung up to dry on fences. We had a French driver in front of us who wanted to drive at 1mph, which was not what we wanted to do in a van with British plates on surrounded by people who wanted to get in it. We went straight to the port instead of looking for somewhere nice to have lunch, and have spent out last few hours in France drinking tea in George on a car park at the port.

We will be getting on the ferry shortly so I will sign off for this trip. We've thoroughly enjoyed our 2 weeks in France, despite the lack of toilet paper and the mosquito bites. Claire is even talking about doing some French evening classes! I'm sure we will be back, if not next year then the year after that.

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The Secret Paths

Thursday 25th September 2014
France

I didn't have so much trouble getting up this morning, and after my morning trip to the boulangerie we spent ages waiting for George to warm up in the sun. We were still a bit chilly by 11am, so Claire went for a run and I did a kettlebell workout with Chris Bear, who almost got trapped under his kettlebell at one point. Good job I was keeping an eye on him. Claire joined me for the last bit, then we had lunch and finally set out to the beach.

We were feeling a bit guilty that Chris hadn't seen any of the standing stones yesterday (he stayed in the van as I was worried about rucksack space). So we set off to try and find a solitary dolmen marked on the map a couple of miles along the coast. We were studying the map and obviously looking like lost tourists when an elderly French couple approached us and asked us what were were looking for. At least, I think that's what they asked us. We showed them the dolmen on the map, and they pointed into the woods, scoffed and shook their heads before coming out with a torrent of French, which we think meant "you can't get to it". A further torrent of French followed, along with a lot of pointing at different things on our map. Claire said "oui" several times and then came out with "d'accord" which is something French people say a lot during conversations. We think it means OK. However, it was obvious to me, and I think to the French couple, that neither of us had a clue what they were taking about. We eventually managed to get away.

I don't like to be told that something is there but you can't get to it, so once they were out of sight, I spotted a very faint possible path through the woods and darted off down it. Claire followed, probably rolling her eyes at my choice of route and chance of success. After about 5 minutes of fighting our way through a forest of gorse bushes (most unpleasant when wearing shorts and T shirts), we emerged on the top of a hill to find the elusive dolmen! There were no obvious paths to it from any direction, and so we were the only ones there. It's no wonder we struggled to find any yesterday if they're all so well hidden.

We spent a while there taking photos, getting on top of the stones and under the stones and making sure Chris had a good look to make up for yesterday. We spotted some marks on the top which according to yesterday's museum are where cavemen used to sharpen their axe heads.

We fought our way back through the gorse and the woods (don't worry, Chris remained safely inside my rucksack throughout the gorse battle) and headed for the beach. The tide had come in quite a lot whilst we'd been in the woods and we decided it was the perfect time to use the secret path to the little island in the bay. The island is one of those islands that are only islands at high tide, but what makes it unusual is that there is a natural raised sand causeway which at certain points during the tide is only a few inches below water.

We walked across as the tide was just closing it off from the beach, had a quick look round the island (nothing there really except a sunburnt man and a dog playing in the sea). By the time we came back the sea had just covered the secret path so to people on the beach it would have looked like we were walking on water. The sand of the secret path was bubbling like a jacuzzi, and we assumed there were some sea creatures underneath, possibly what people were collecting in buckets earlier in the week. Despite digging down with our hands we couldn't find what they were though.

When we reached the beach we sat in the sun for a while reading and watching the tide come the rest of the way in. We eventually headed back to George at about 6pm when we started getting chilly. We were sad to leave the beach, as it may be the last time we get our feet wet in the sea until next summer. It also signifies that we're nearly at the end of our holiday, as tomorrow we are starting our journey north towards Calais. We plan to stop for our last night in France a few hours up the coast at a town called Honfleur which has been recommended by two people in the week before our trip for being generally nice and having nice restaurants and being on the way back to Calais.

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Down in the Dolmens

Wednesday 24th September 2014
France

OK, there was a bit of a problem this morning. I'm sure you expected one. I got up at 8.20am, went to the toilet, came back to the van, couldn't get warm or get more than a grunt out of Claire, so I got back into bed and didn't get out again until 10am. So the early morning coffee and croissants went by the wayside, and we had to settle for some (even more inferior than yesterday's) backup long life pain au chocolate for breakfast.

We eventually made it into town at about 12 noon or so. I've been feeling a bit out of sorts all day, probably down to too much sleep (and possibly too much wine last night?). We started off with a walk round the market, which was just like any other market really although there were some stalls selling some very nice looking cheeses and baguettes and mussels. But Claire had strongly hinted earlier that she'd like to go straight from town to look at the standing stones so I didn't dare buy any, as there's nothing worse than a sweating Camembert or wriggling mussels in your rucksack all day. So we bought some filled baguettes and some things that looked like flat doughnuts which we hoped were filled with apple to have for a picnic.

Carnac is famous for its countless standing stones. There are three massive clusters of them, which are known as the "alignments" and then loads (allegedly) of other individual stones and "dolmens" which are the Stonehenge style stones made into archways. We went to the alignments first. They sounded like something out of the first Tomb Raider film, so it came as a slight, but not altogether unexpected, disappointment to me that there was no sign of Lara Croft leaping over the stones or lining them up with some secret landmark to reveal all sorts of previously hidden treasures.

There were an awful lot of stones there. From some angles they just looked like a random mess of stones, but then when you stood in the right place you could see they were all aligned in rows as far as the eye could see. Very pleasing to the eye, although not quite as much as the American War Cemetary at Omaha beach. I suppose I can't ask as much of Neolithic man in terms of stone masonry really. We had a walk round the edge, as we weren't allowed to walk amongst the stones because of erosion (not of the stones, but the surrounding plants). I tripped over and hurt my ankle which didn't improve my feeling out of sorts one bit. Then we got back on the bikes and cycled to see the other two massive clusters of stones, which were every bit as impressive as the first, but still no sign of Lara Croft.

After that we decided to go and find a nice spot for lunch near some of the single standing stones or dolmens. It all looked pretty straightforward. We'd got a map from the information centre showing all the roads and stones. We knew where we were on the map. But could we find any of the stones? No. Bearing in mind that these are pretty big stones - the size of cars - it really shouldn't have been that difficult. I eventually reached meltdown point through hunger at about 2pm and we had lunch at a little picnic table not overlooking anything in particular. Claire wouldn't let us eat the doughnut things until we'd found a dolmen so they went back in my rucksack to get a bit flatter.

Eventually, about half an hour after lunch, we came across a sign for some dolmens that we'd been looking for for a while. After following a track through a wood for 300m we found them - a group of 3! We ate our doughnuts sitting on the flat top of one of them. Claire had picked up a leaflet about the stones, and we discovered that we were actually scoffing doughnuts on a prehistoric grave as they are burial chambers. The doughnuts were nice, but not quite like doughnuts. They were no worse for being a bit flatter than they should have been, although in my opinion could have done with a bit of custard filling to go with the apple, although I suppose that might have got squished out into my rucksack.

Now that we'd finally found some dolmens we headed back to Carnac. Claire was desperate to go to the museum to find out more about the stones. I wasn't that keen really, but decided to go along with it all for a quiet life. As it happened, we weren't in there long because (predictably) all the writing was in French so we didn't really know what we were looking at, despite the English guide book that we borrowed from reception. The main thing that I did learn (from some pictures on the wall) was that the dolmens were made by standing the two upright stones up, then surrounding them with soil, dragging the top stone up the newly formed slope, and then digging all the soil back out again. I'm not quite sure how modern man knows that's how they were made, but it was in a museum so it must be true.

After that we went back to George, where we have remained ever since, having some nice refreshing cider followed by some beers and a BBQ.

Tomorrow we are under no illusion about getting up early, in fact after the chill of this morning I don't really want to. We are having another day at the beach, and as the tide won't be in until afternoon, a lazy morning is positively encouraged.

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A day at the beach

Tuesday 23rd September 2014
France

We haven't been to the market today as we'd planned, because the market isn't until tomorrow. The confusion was due to a misread sign in the campsite dish washing room. What actually happened this morning was we overslept, then I got us some slightly inferior croissants from the Super U supermarket, then we eventually went to the beach when the day had warmed up a bit.

We hadn't given the tides a second thought, so when we arrived at the beach we were surprised to find that the sea was nowhere to be seen.

Aside from the fact that sea is nicer to look at than a load of wet sand, I wasn't too bothered as it deferred the possibility of swimming until after lunch. We spent a while collecting shells that the last tide had brought in and then plonked ourselves down in our folding chairs to read and sunbathe for a while. After Claire had sorted the shells out of course. Apparently the best of them are coming home with us to go in a shell bowl next to my rock bowl, which is an excellent dust gathering tool.

There were quite a few people out on the wet sand with buckets and mini garden forks collecting something. At first we thought that they might be collecting mussels, but Claire went down for a closer look, and only found a baby crab and some small cockles when she dug a hole. After consulting Google, it turns out that mussels live on rocks, so we reckon that all the collectors were probably after cockles.

I finished my book (the 6th of the holiday I think) and then we went for lunch in a little restaurant opposite the beach. Claire had a Croque Monsieur and I decided on a herring salad as I thought it would be a lighter option, but when it arrived there seemed to be a whole shoal of herring on the plate along with a basket of bread. I was beaten by the herring but not the bread, which I'm sure you will not be surprised about if you know me at all. The meal was a first for us in that it is the first time we have conversed exclusively in French to our waitress without even asking if she speaks English. We think she might have been kind to us by speaking more slowly than usual (as we understood everything she said which is highly unusual!).

We waddled back down to the beach after lunch, collapsed into our chairs, and watched the tide come in while I got stuck into another book. Claire did not suggest swimming and I kept quiet about it, as I was only just warm enough as it was.
We eventually made our way back to George at about 6pm, had showers, and then had a bread free (!) barbeque. We were still a bit full from lunch really.

Tomorrow we really are going to the market! We are going out early without breakfast, and plan to have coffee and croissants in town, visit the market, have a look round the old town and then go on a bike ride to see all the standing stones in the area. After lunch of course.

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European Encounters

Monday 22nd September 2014
France

We were pretty slow getting going this morning. Our excuse was that the awning seemed to be wetter inside than out from condensation and we had to wait for it to dry. I think the only reason we left at all was because we ran out of milk for tea.

We arrived in Carnac at about 2pm. First stop was a supermarket as food and drink supplies were running dangerously low. We were in there for ages. There seem to be at least two separate sections for each of wine, cheese, cold meat and crockery in any French supermarket. We came out €80 worse off again, but at least we got some plates to eat off now. We did come out without a pétanque set, which is something we've been after since day one or two of our trip, but we weren't prepared to pay €20 for only 3 balls. I'm pretty sure you can get a set of 6 or 8 in Asda for about a tenner.

After our mega shop we had lunch on the beach, then Claire read for a bit (I think) and I had a nap and gave myself indigestion in the process. I woke up to be confronted with a child having a tantrum and what I thought was one of those saggy Continental European women with no shame sunbathing topless only a few metres away. We decided that was our cue to find a campsite and headed back to George, to find that he had another British vehicle parked next to him. A surreptitious inspection of the tax disc by Claire revealed that our car park neighbours were from Burton on Trent. We were just about to drive off when the car's owners returned, who were non other than the brazen bare breasted sunbather and her bearded companion. We made a quick exit so as not to be associated with them by any number plate or tax disc spotters.

Finding a camp site was not as easy as it has been for the last few days. There are plenty of sites around here and we wanted one close to a sandy beach. A few of them were closed as it's out of season now, and those that were open had too many static caravan type things for our liking, or were really expensive. We eventually settled on one which claims to be only 100m from the beach we had lunch on earlier. There are static caravans here but we can't really see them from our pitch. The warden was very relaxed and told us (in English) to find a pitch, use the electric, do whatever, and come and pay in the morning. We're pretty sure that it will be less than €20 so have put the awning up and plan to stay for 4 nights.

We're pitched up in a very diverse section of the site as we have French caravanners, German motorhomers and Czech campers (4 adults in one estate car and a not exactly huge tent - very cosy) nearby. A motorbike has just arrived but it's dark and they're being very quiet so I don't know where they're from. I'll make sure I have a sneaky look by torchlight on my way to the toilet later. The German man is quite friendly and came over to ask us the results of the Scottish referendum, and express his relief at our reply! We're pleased too, but not for EU socio economic reasons like he is. We're just pleased that Scotland is still part of where we live, because we like it there.

Tomorrow, apart from remembering to pay the laid back warden, we will probably go to the market in Carnac and to the beach.

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Mussel Beach

Sunday 21st September 2014
France

It was misty again this morning and quite chilly. Getting Claire out of bed was the most difficult it's been for the whole holiday. When you're in a small camper van, one person having a lie in is quite antisocial unless it is nice enough for sitting outside. Anyway, she got up eventually and after several mugs of tea and breaking one of our two plates we set off on the bikes again.

Today we headed over to Camaret-sur-mer, which is a town near the western tip of the Crozon peninsula. Apart from the initial hill as we left Le Fret, the route was pretty flat and we were there quickly. So quickly in fact, that I wasn't hungry enough for lunch (!) and decided on an extra excursion to the very tip of the peninsula. This made me very unpopular as it involved a relentless hill, although there was a very pretty little cove when we got there. After that I decided I had better give in and go for lunch. It was a good job I did, as it took us about half an hour to pick a restaurant. The problem was that there were too many to choose from, and not much between them.

We finally selected one based on it having mussels with a blue cheese sauce on the menu, and a table outside overlooking the beach. Unfortunately they'd run out of blue cheese and I was soon feeling a bit cold, but we'd already ordered a bottle of Cidre by then so we stayed put and I put another top on. We both had mussels in cream sauce, which Claire has now had about 5 times this week, but it is the first time I've ever had a whole portion of mussels to myself. I enjoyed them much more than I thought I would. I've tried some of Claire's before and thought I'd probably be bored of eating them by the time I was half way through, but I had no such trouble.

After lunch we went and took some photos of a picturesque fishing boat graveyard and then went back via a car boot sale on the sea front in search of plates. The only plates we could find were sold as antique dinner sets, or single expensive ones. I decided I would just eat my dinner off the chopping board and we'd hopefully find something suitable and cheap during tomorrow's supermarket stock up.

The hill back out of Camaret-sur-mer was extremely steep and probably made more difficult by the amount of mussels we'd just eaten. I made it in one go but Claire had to have a couple of breaks, although she didn't give in and walk it. It seemed further back than it was on the way, although we made a bit more progress when I went in front because Claire was doing too much free wheeling.
It was lovely and sunny when we got back to George, so we sat out in the sun, read, and drank the last of the beer in between doing the laundry. Claire's pants and my T shirts were reaching critical levels so something had to be done for the benefit of the general French public.

Tomorrow we're moving on again to another area of Brittany. We're planning on staying near Carnac for a few days, which is further south and about a 2 hour drive from here. We've enjoyed our stay here at Le Fret. The campsite is good - on the waters edge with good facilities, no mosquitos that we know of, and fresh croissants and baguettes available every morning from reception. For €19 a night including electricity, a big pitch and free showers we can't complain.

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A Feast of French Food

Saturday 20th September 2014
France

I had about half a lie in today. I got up half way between the time the alarm went off and the time I got up yesterday. When I went out to get the breakfast it was damp and misty and I couldn't see the sea at all. We had a slow breakfast with 2 mugs of tea, and read for a bit but it still didn't look much better outside, so we decided to go out anyway.

By the time we were cycling out of the campsite the mist had retreated and we'd pretty much forgotten it had ever been there at all. The route out of Le Fret started with a hill, and consequently a lot of complaining from Claire. Claire is at a disadvantage because I ride my bike to work every day and she rides hers about twice a year. This means that her legs aren't used to it and she hasn't had the chance to get used to her bike and get it set up and working just right. I spent half a day the week before the holiday replacing my chain and gear cable, and generally giving my bike some TLC, so mine was working perfectly.

Our (well, my) intention was to cycle to Pointe des Espagnols which is at one end of the Crozon peninsula, for no other reason than it looked like it might be interesting on the map, and it was far enough away to be a proper bike ride but not too far to be impossible or cause too much pain. I did start to wonder whether I needed to reconsider my definition of impossible after all the complaining on the first hill, but before I knew it we were there, with only a small amount of complaining. It was still misty out to sea so the views weren't great but we spent a while there having a bit of a rest.

There were two army Land Rovers there and about 6 soldiers who seemed to be on the lookout for something. One was busy texting/playing Candy Crush on his phone in the Landrover and the others were standing on a little wall looking out to sea through binoculars. All of a sudden, the one in the Landrover got out and sauntered over to the others, and I noticed he was the only one who hadn't got a handgun on his belt. When I pointed this out to Claire, she said "he doesn't need one, he's got a big gun in the Landrover". This being the same Landrover that had the door open about 2 metres away from me and about 20 metres from the now gun-less soldier. I received another elbow in the ribs for commenting on that, and Claire decided it was time for us to head back. We took a quick selfie before we left, which seemed to attract the attention of some of the soldiers (I think they thought we were photographing the unattended gun), so we pedalled off quickly back the way we came before we got in trouble.

There was more complaining from Claire on the way back, about hills and gears and pedals and suchlike. We swapped bikes so I could see if the problem was mechanical or leg related (it was mainly leg related), which had the added benefit of making Claire finally accept that her saddle was far too low. She took rather a fancy to my bike but I have managed to get it back now.

We weren't hungry until we'd cycled all the way back to Le Fret, which was a good job really as we didn't see anywhere to eat on the way back. We cycled around town and found a little creperie down a dodgy looking side street which led to a nice beach. We ate there, and sampled a whole host of Bretagne specialities. We started off with Gallettes, which are a kind of savoury pancake filled with nice things like cheese, spicy sausage and mushrooms (they may sound like Staffordshire oatcakes but they're not). That was washed down with local Cidre, which was fizzy and came in a champagne bottle (but not champagne prices fortunately). Then we had sweet crepes for pudding and coffee to finish up.

The whole meal was lovely, and the waiter/owner spoke English, and seemed keen to talk to us in English. In fact, his English was so good that at first I took him to be a Cockney. Then during the course of our meal we convinced ourselves he was Dutch because he hadn't quite got an English accent. We asked him before we left and it turned out that he was born in South London but spent most of his childhood in France. So he was a sort of Cockney after all. We were disappointed to find that he was closing the creperie for the season today and heading over to the UK to visit family, so we wouldn't be able to return for another feast tomorrow.

After our lunch we went back to George. Claire read for a bit and had a nap whilst I spent an hour tinkering with her bike and then reading my book. She has had a ride of it round the campsite and seems happy enough so we will see how it is on our next proper bike ride.
Our evening consisted of a mountain of the usual bread, cheeses, cold meat and wine. Then I fell out of a tree trying to find a suitable branch for Claire to hang off to stretch her back. Neither of us are feeling any better for it. It's gone quite chilly now and we've retreated to George, and Claire is using her new fleece blanket.

Those of you that have been following my blogs will of course be awaiting an update on my mosquito bites. I am pleased to report that they feel a lot better today, causing only a small amount of itchiness, hence their late appearance in today's blog. They still look awful, and are starting to take on the appearance of bruises. I expect there will still be remnants of them there when I get home in a weeks time.

Tomorrow we're planning another bike ride although I'm not really sure where to yet.

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Lazy Campers

Friday 19th September 2014
France

This won't be a very long blog as today has been a most unblogworthy day, and I don't want to bore you with too much information about how my mosquito bites are coming on or what we had for lunch.

I had a bit of a lie in this morning instead of doing my kettlebells with the morning mosquitos. Fortunately we had ordered croissants from the campsite reception so that forced me out of bed at 9am to fetch them. Claire had a headache this morning (maybe caused by not enough water with her wine the previous evening) and it was raining, so we thought we'd have a lazy morning reading and getting Claire rehydrated.

That turned into a lazy afternoon as well. We had lunch in the van and then ventured out for a walk to see what was in the nearby town, Le Fret, which is about a mile away. The sun had come out by then and it was pretty hot. We had a walk round but my bitten legs, which I had been thinking were a lot better, started complaining about being made to walk in the sun so we spent most of the afternoon sitting outside George reading, drinking beer and napping. And snoring apparently. We could hear loud claps of thunder for several hours but the storm never made it to us and the sun stayed out.

We returned to Le Fret this evening for dinner in a nice little restaurant by the waters edge. Our waitress spoke some English, and had a good laugh at us trying to interpret the menu using a little phrase book and my iPhone before offering to help. She translated the things we couldn't figure out - pentoncles (small shellfish) and entrecôte (some sort of beef). We ended up ordering both of them (they turned out to be scallops and steak), along with lots of mussels and some creme brûlée, all of which was very good.

On the way back, we could see the storm was moving out to sea, with forks of lightning shooting into the water across the bay, and then when we were walking through the campsite we spotted a strange creature which turned out to be a glowworm in the hedge. Neither of us had seen one before, and we only spotted it because it's bum was lit up with two bright green stripes. Under torchlight it was a brown insect (not a worm at all) that I didn't much like the look of.

We're planning on going out on the bikes tomorrow. I think that having to steer and concentrate on being on the wrong side of the road will take my mind off my itchy legs, that is if they're not better tomorrow. I have a 20+ km bike ride in mind but I suspect we will get sidetracked by beaches or food.

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