Day 2, Peussicot

So after yesterday’s catalogue of events, today we finally made it to John & Dianne’s place in France.

We had a cracking nights sleep in the Bay De Somme and awoke to beautiful blue skies and tremendous temperatures. We were later waking up this morning as it was gone midnight when we finally crawled into our pit. We opened our peepers about 7.45 and got up pretty much straight away. We were lucky enough last night to get an electric hook up so we were on mains power which meant we had power in the van so tea and toast to start the morning. We finally departed just after nine and set of on our course heading south. Beautiful weather and a fairly uneventful 420 mile drive really.

We had one incident at the services on one of our many fuel stops when Sharon announced we should go in to get a drink before filling up. I liked her thinking but it was short lived. There was no way to get back to the fuel station after the car park without going the 1 mile back to the motorway and coming back, which we had no option but to do because the car park was chokka block. So we decided to go round again but not bother with a drink, we’d stop further on and make a cuppa in the van. We had to go round again as we needed fuel, so that’s what we did. Unfortunately, the pump we chose was out of order (no signs or anything) and due to the layout of said fuel station we had to go round again. On our 3rd attempt it was found that the pump we picked this time was for lorries only and the nozzle wouldn’t fit in our car. Queue 4th attempt. Finally we managed to fill up and then we were on our way. I was chuffed to say the least.

The one very sad side of our holiday meant we were unable to share our special bridesmaids wedding. Laura Smith who was our bridesmaid 18 years ago, married Danny today. We tried everything from changing the day we left, to booking flights back for the day but we couldn’t make anything work. We kept in touch all day via message and FaceTime. Laura had asked me to do her a CD for her service which I did and at 4.30pm UK time were playing it and Here Comes The Bride was playing. Very sad that we missed it, but we did our best to be as much a part of the day as we could be. We also managed to stream the local radio station on the way down and were delighted to hear that England beat Sweden 2-0.

We finally made it to John and Dianne’s about 6pm French time and were greeted by John and Margaret who were already here. As always a very warm greeting and it was lovely to see them both. We wheeled the van into the garden and sat down and had a drink with them both. I’d forgotten how peaceful and quiet it is here. John & Dianne were running about an hour late so were just behind us. Where we had parked on their garden was fine except there was a large step out of our van, it was noticeable so we repositioned as I could see one of us going base over apex and hurting ourselves.

John and Dianne arrived an hour or so behind us and it wasn’t long after that that the champagne was flowing. Although not usually a fan I found it actually quite nice. We nipped out and face timed Laura and had a lovely chat with her. She looked lovely and they were having a lovely day.

Mags had put on lots of French bread, cold meats, cheese and Pate for tea and JB had remembered my liking for London Pride and fetched a few bottles down. Sharon was on the champers and rose wine. I’d also fetched a couple of kegs of doom bar which JB and I made a start on whilst we watched Croatia beat Russia in the World Cup.

It’s just gone midnight here, very hot and lovely and quiet, I’ve been volunteered for bbq breakfast duty in the morning so that’s it. Goodnight from us xRead more