Hello, me again.
You may well have received this automatically because, earlier in the
summer, you subscribed to my blog. We are
back on the road and I am blogging again, so if you are tired of my ramblings
now is the time to unsubscribe from the blog.
First a quick catch up.
We returned home from France at the end of June to find the garden very
lush, to say the least, after such a wet spring and got straight to work to
make it look presentable for the ‘Open Gardens’ weekend in mid-July. Amazingly we had a dry weekend, lots of
visitors, and a good time was had by all.
Later in July Ray’s Mum came to visit for a few days and she chose a
really sunny week so we got out and about with her, including a great day at
the Sandringham Flower Show. Then
Olympic fever took hold and we watched and enjoyed hours of telly, one of the
best things was seeing sports we knew nothing about and don’t usually see. Almost made me get on my bike. Finally we enjoyed a lovely family weekend at
a very posh hotel, to celebrate my Mum and Dad’s Diamond Wedding anniversary. How good is that?
Now we are back in France in the motorhome. Plan A is to go towards Epinal, which is pretty
much the source of the Moselle, and to follow it downstream (North) till it
turns into the Mosel and eventually flows into the
Rhine at Koblenz. But as ever the route
will depend on weather, serendipity and the availability of camp sites and
places to see.
We arrived yesterday at La Chaumière at Buysscheure (no
idea how to pronounce that) thanks to a recommendation from friends Wyn and
Chris. This is small, very friendly site
near St Omer, so not very far from Calais.
We decided to stay two nights as we generally rush through the northern départements
in a bid to get somewhere more exciting, and we have been for a lovely walk
today through rolling fields and a marshy nature reserve. The highlight of the walk was definitely the
‘bac à chaîne’ which you had to use to cross the river – it was a flat bottomed
boat attached to both banks by a long chain.
We probably should have translated ‘bac à chaîne’ (tub at chain?) from
the description of the walk before we set off! The waymarks were painted on the boat, which
was a nice touch.
