A Bad Leg Day

Sunday 14th September 2014
France

I set the alarm for 8 am this morning with the intention of getting on the road fairly early. Needless to say, I managed to turn the alarm off half asleep this morning, so we didn't actually get up until 9.30 am.

Then we had to have showers. The showers were token operated, which always makes me feel cheated. On campsites with token showers you have to pay (usually about a pound, but in this case €1.80) for which you get a certain amount of time in the shower (the time normally varies from campsite to campsite, but in this case from shower to shower!). But some campsites have free showers which don't have a timer. So on the occasions when I have to pay for my shower it is not as good as the times when it's free. Something seems wrong there.

Today's token operated shower experience made me feel even more cheated than normal.

Claire and I got in adjacent showers and inserted our tokens at about the same time. Normally I find that I rush and then have loads of time to spare, so I decided to chance shaving my legs. Of course, the shower ran out just as I'd smeared shaving foam over the second leg. And it actually ran out rather than went cold. To add insult to injury, Claire's shower carried on for several minutes and I later found out it only stopped because she switched it off! I couldn't even get in Claire's shower to hose my leg off because there were men outside and I was naked and compromised by shaving foam.
I managed to sort out the remaining leg by wiping it with a pair of dirty pants and then rinsing it in a sink. After that we had cream cheese and bacon bagels from home before finally getting on the road at about 11am.

We took the back roads, which roughly followed the coast, which was easy driving through lots of nice French towns and countryside. We had some difficulty finding anywhere to buy food (!) because it was a Sunday, but managed to get some bread, salamis, and a very smelly Camembert for a late lunch, which we ate at a little viewpoint by a park overlooking the sea. There were quite a few French people playing pétanque (boules) and sitting at picnic tables with far superior picnics to ours, and wine. Much more civilised than back home.

We eventually got going again at about 3pm, and decided that we'd better take the autoroute or we'd never get there.

We got to our overnight stop, which is a little town called Lion-sur-mer which is by Sword Beach - one of the beaches the British troops landed on in the D Day landings. Tonight's campsite is right by the beach. It also has some of the hole in the ground toilets, but the less said about them the better. I have had a go, but won't go into details, apart from to say that I almost got a wet foot.

We dashed into town as soon as we arrived because we were starving. After roaming around town for 10 minutes, we soon realised that there was only one restaurant open. During our search, I managed to walk straight into a fire hydrant whilst looking around for eateries, with two cars full of French people looking on. I put on a brave face but am still limping now. Claire found it all highly amusing. Of note, it was the same leg that was left covered in shaving foam this morning, so it's certainly having a bad day.

Claire had mussels for dinner, I had a pizza and we both had crepes for pudding with chocolate on. Now we're back in the van drinking some cheap wine we bought in one of the few shops we could find open earlier.

Tomorrow we really are going to the D Day beaches. We're a day behind our rather loose schedule, but we're not really bothered. We have spotted a couple of nice looking boulangeries and patisseries (bread and cake shops) in town, and a supermarket, so hopefully we will be able to get some nice croissants for breakfast and stock up on food.

Chris Bear has been quiet today but is looking forward to the beach tomorrow.

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