Cheese Yes - Bells No

What better way to spend a Sunday than driving along a quiet road with the Seine on one side and forests on the other. It makes us desperate to return to the frantic English roads that we love so much - NOT.
A daily cheese routine has begun in earnest. Yesterday’s lunch was a baguette and a Picardie Brie that weirdly resembled freshly churned butter and had a pleasingly strong flavour which Mr Fluffy described as off yoghurt - perfect. Today we hoovered up a baguette and a Tricorne de Picardie, a hard yet creamy cheese in a triangular shape - who’d have guessed. Tomorrow Roquefort - oh, and a baguette.
Quasimodo would have loved the Aire we stopped at this afternoon - oh, them bells, them bells. The lakeside location did little to tempt us to stay at La Madeleine Bouvet once three o’clock chimed out from the pretty church adjacent to the parking lot. It wasn’t a total loss, however, as the Fluffy one got his graffiti fix at the church and we are now at a slightly less attractive location just up the road in Breconcelles - with no BreconBELLS.

The Bells End to our Pretty Parking

Not a total loss for Mr Fluffy

Missing Madame BovaRY

As I was choosing which books to take with me on the trip I looked at Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’ sitting on the pile and thought, no, I’ll read that when I get back.
The Fluffy one then goes ahead and chooses Ry, the location where said Madame B was set, for our second night in France. Happily, the Madame Bovary trail around the village tells pretty much the whole story so now I don’t have to read it.
It really is a lovely village in the Seine-Maritime region with stunning houses and countryside. Mr Fluffy has already managed to find some medieval graffiti on the church and the flan is pretty good as well.

Graffiti to keep the old man happy

Mme Bovary was ‘ere

Hot flan action

Back Where We Left Off

When something starts off badly it’s always a good sign; usually anyway. As we set out on our trip to mainland Europe I was delighted to learn that I had forgotten an important piece of paperwork so we had to go back and get it - not too far away but the Fluffy one was not impressed. We were equally thrilled when we clipped the wing mirror on a similarly thrilled (I presume) van and both our tail lights decided to fail.
It all boded very well and the notion of ‘never two without three’ was complete.
Our Eurotunnel crossing on Friday 22nd was without incident and we headed off to where we had spent our last night on our trip last year, Le Crotoy. We were tempted back by the fabulous seafood, amazing sea views from the Aire (motorhome parking) and the proliferation of dog poo (actually you can scrap the last one - I put that in just to amuse myself).
If you ever find yourselves there and you love french seafood you must go to the restaurant, Le Mascaret. Three courses for 30 euros and you won’t need to eat again for a hundred years (slight exaggeration there). The village fromager recommended it so thanks go to him. His cheese was pretty good as well.
Oh, and I found my dream home along the seafront but Fluffy won’t let me buy it.

My dream home - it looks much better in real life

Poo dodging

Picking up scraps

View from Dickie’s window

Farewell to France

What a joy to discover Le Crotoy; a lovely village by the sea with stunning walks and lovely bird life. The high point was the food. 

After

Before

Le Crotoy

We only had a choice of two seafood restaurants due to it being end of season but they Fluffy One didn’t waste any time ordering and tucking into a plate of fruits de mer. A gigantic crab topped off a plate of oysters, huge whelks, pink and grey prawns and langoustines. He made short work of it all but refused to drink any of the bottle of white wine we’d ordered to go with our seafood. I, of course, had to come to the rescue and drink it all with my rather too cheesy cassoulette de mer - shame.

A morning walk dodging dog poo (the only downer about Le Crotoy) was interrupted by Hugo freaking out at someone shooting in the distance so we left early and headed to Watten for the night. It was a short hop to Calais from there for us to get to the Euro tunnel this morning. There is a short mountain walk where we discovered an 18th century windmill and an even older abbey. From Dickie we watched barges float by on the canal. Unfortunately the restaurant was closed on Wednesdays so we had to make do with an omelette sandwich - a bit of a step down from the seafood platter.

Tonight we’re parked up in Newhaven overlooking a gigantic pile of recycling which, we presume, will be heading to China some time soon. Home tomorrow.

Bon Bon Honfleur

Our trip is coming to an end - until the next one - and we’re in Honfleur with a few days to go before we get the Eurotunnel on Thursday. Hugo has been to the vet for his tablet to get back into the UK, we’ve been on a trek up the hill to see a Black Madonnna (who wasn’t at home), and Graham has won a glass chopping board in a poetry competition. (Congratulations, by the way.) What a day!

Hugo wasn’t impressed when I fondled Bon Bon, the vet’s cat, for longer than he deemed necessary - she was pretty cute though.

Graham’s poem can be found on the Hymer Owner’s Group Facebook page. He’s looking forward to getting the prize when we get back.

We’ve had a fabulous time, especially in France. Italy was good too but the terrible roads made the trip quite stressful so we won’t be heading back in the van any time soon. I’m sure we’ve all put on masses of weight from all the excellent food and wine we’ve consumed. Diet when we get back until we take off again.

Chapelle de Notre Dame de Grace

Bon Bon

Souvenir

It was fortuitous that this morning at 11am on 11 November we happened to be standing at a WW1 memorial in a small village in Normandy as the bells of its church rang out. We were the only ones there; we presume the people of the village had their ceremony yesterday as there were flowers at the base of the statue. There were about 40 names on the memorial, many with the same surname so presumably sons and brothers from within the same families. It was raining - quite fitting really.

Camaret-sur-Mer

Another day, another set of standing stones. Camaret-sur-Mer has a great motorhome parking area right next to a large group of stones and within walking distance of a most beautiful beach. The weather was wild overnight so, again, we had to wait for a sunny break this morning. Hugo absolutely loved wizzing around the beach at top speed until he was scared witless by a group of huntsmen shooting some poor animals at the top of the cliff. He recovered after a few treats and a tummy tickle.