Fifty shades of hay

After two summers island hopping in Greece it is time for something different. Plus it is just way too hot in southern Europe (I think we’re on the third or fourth heatwave of the summer) so we are chasing the cold and heading north to Sweden. This will also give me the opportunity to try out a whole new range of puns, alongside regular inappropriate comments.
It all started yesterday when Jess and I had to go to Toulouse to collect a campervan we have hired that will be our home for the next four weeks. The first thing I noticed about the van was that despite it being rented from a French site, it is a German registered van. I told Jess that meant she couldn’t mention the war, I did once but I think I got away with it. Everything was smooth with the hiring process and we were soon on our way home so we could spend 4 hours packing it all up so that we weee ready to hit the road first thing this morning. We then spent another hour or so this morning packing more and tidying the house so that by ten thirty we were ready to roll, So not quite first thing.
One sad thing to report about our trip is that there have been further casualties and now there is not just one fallen comrade but two as Ruby will also not be coming with us this year, she is staying in Paris with Lily. This is doubly sad of course because it means there will be no highbrow and higher quality blog to read and remind me of all the things I forgot to include. In fact, I was just talking with the other two, their names escape me for the moment, about how much we were all going to miss them both.
The drive was smooth, it is so awesome to be on the road with no real itinerary. We do have a vague plan, but as we always say, adventure stinks of wee, so if things go wrong or we just have a change of heart, nothing is set in stone so we can adapt. We did have to name our van and as it is German I started to say that if it was the 80s we could have gone with Nena, of 99 luft balloons (a banger) fame when the twins both piped up and said we have to call it Nena Schwartz. When asked why, they said it was a family in-joke and that it would be very funny, although it seems that maybe I was not in on the joke as I had no idea what they were talking about. But Nena Schwartz it is! After a couple of hours we were hungry and needed to change driver so we pulled into an aire but it was very full and there wasn’t really any space. So we slowly drove around trying to decide if we should go round one more time. These are the crucial decisions and so important to get right so Jess and I were playing ‘what do you think?’ ‘I don’t know what do you think?’ right up to the point we had to decide and then Allegra just said ‘drive on to the next place!’ So we adapted, just like that. It’s good to have someone in the van who knows what they want. It was just as well she did because the next one was not far and much nicer so we could sit at a table under the trees and enjoy some lunch.
Jess was on the next driving leg and it seems she drew the short straw as the motorways we were on by then were much busier but she handled it like a pro. As we drove through the French countryside it was impossible not to notice the impact of all the hot weather we have been having for what seems like months now. Where normally we would be driving through a variety of lush greenery with fields of every shade, now it just seems dry, with every field looking like gold or beige hay. We stopped for another break and at these services they had a selection of giant food for some reason. So there were metre long dried sausage, huge tubs of crisps and popcorn and the one that did for us, extra long tubes of biscuits. (For reasons not entirely clear to me I need to refer to them as dihscuits, the twins assure me this is hilarious). As we are big fans of beers and biscuits this was an easy choice, although alas, as much as I searched I could not find a giant beer to match.
The last leg was me again and the motorways had quietened down again so it was all smooth cruising. All that remained was to decide where to stay for the night. When I suggested to Jess that we could go to Beaune I could tell that she was up for it although the look of shock on the twins faces quickly ruled that out. The next option was Dijon but no one was keen on that, they all agreed that it didn’t quite cut the mustard as an overnight stop. The final option was Belfort and as I can’t think of any humorous reason to include that if it wasn’t to be our destination that is where we are now. Dinner has been had, dishes have been done and we are all quite weary. I don’t think there is too much anxiety to be sleeping in a campervan again although it wouldn’t be a surprise if there was. After all, the last time we did this we were awoken at about 1am to shouts of ‘the van is on fire’. Hopefully tonight will be much more restful than that, as tomorrow we are heading for Germany.Read more