Angela Paul and a 3 legged dog! We've started.

6th May Polling day, good luck Andy X

Many of you will be wondering where the hell we are and why we have not posted anything as yet, no? Oh well, here’s why anyway especially for Pam, Maria and Marion who we know will be watching the blog.

Having left home on the Thursday, travelled to London, then popped up to Oxford on the Monday to see Andy, Carole, Joe and Eleanor for a couple of nights. It was great to see them all and have time to chat as we hadn’t had time to say more than two words to them on the wedding weekend. Thank you Carole for the recipe for the delicious chicken dish you cooked for us. We then returned to London and stayed with Angela and Paul, so all in all we spent 9 days in London. They as usual made us more than welcome and ran us around all over the place, and kept feeding us! We really felt as though we’d had a brilliant week’s holiday. Thank you both so much.

I think we also have to mention Pam & Colin who have spent more time going to our house and checking things for us than is really fair. Thanks X

While we were in London we managed to see Jamie and Tim twice which was great. We had a couple of nice meals with them and Tim disappeared at one point. He’d gone to the bookshop next door and returned with two books for us for our holiday which he thought we’d enjoy, so kind of him. We also caught Stephen and Reena just before we left for France which was a lovely bonus as we feared we would not see them until August when we return. The London tube is always good for a laugh and as you know things tend to happen to us, this trip was no exception. While returning on the northern line from an excellent meal with the boys in Waterloo we encountered a three legged dog! He was being carried around by his master in a wicker basket; you see, all life is here in these pages.

At 5am bank holiday Monday my lovely sister and Paul got up to see us off, Paul moved his car which was blocking the road outside. This was so that I could get some sleep as I was really worried we would be unable to leave if a neighbour parked there as they often do. Our trip to the Eurotunnel was uneventful and we arrived a little early so were offered the earlier train, which was fine by us. Joan and I had been a little worried about what to do on arrival but it was very simple as they employ a system of number plate recognition, so as we pulled up it addressed us as Mr Crick, amazing. Then after a swift check that our gas was turned off we were sent to board the train. Almost immediately this lady appeared, put chocks under our wheels and we were off. 35 minutes later we drove off and straight onto the motorway heading for our first nights stop, all we had managed to do was have some muesli and a drink of water!

I must say that this was the most hassle free way to go but personally I missed my breakfast! Those of you who have read previous blog’s will know that as soon as we get on board the ferry we make for the restaurant and have a full English breakfast plus tea, toast and marmalade. Never mind, we are here in La Belle France and as usual there is no traffic on the road so we are bowling along heading for the south avoiding Paris like the plague. After a pleasant couple of hundred miles we stopped at a little campsite which appeared totally deserted except for the sign on the door which more or less said help yourself, we will return later. Having quickly checked the facilities, (which were spotless), we did. Later turned out to be the next morning, so it’s a good job we did not wait up!

Next day we set off for Kaye’s house and somehow got our addresses mixed up, I am hurt to notice that none of you are surprised! However whenever we talk about Kaye and Phil for some reason we always refer to them living at Airvault, so we headed there. On arrival we realised it was far too big a town and could not for the life of us remember the name of their village. We did remember that they were very friendly with the English couple who have a campsite here so we headed for that. They were very nice and just as they told us the name of Kaye’s village it came to Joan, Oiron! Not funny as I had already driven about 180 miles but it was 5 miles back along narrow country roads. Kaye was very happy to see us and amused at our brilliant route finding.

Kaye and her partner Phil have bought a huge house which was in very bad repair and while he works away in Libya she is renovating it and setting up as a B&B or Chambres d’hotes as it is called here. It is impossible to describe what this girl has done, suffice to say that this year she has opened and awaits her first guests, and I wish I could plaster the way she does!!! Plus if all the things she is growing come up she will be virtually self sufficient, where does she find the time? We spent a lovely couple of days together and she had a well earned rest/day off when we all visited Thouars old town, which was really great but we suffered from the Kathleen and Ken syndrome, i.e. neither of us remembered the bloomin camera!

So there you are, this is our first week. On the whole it’s dry and quite sunny but if it doesn’t get warmer soon I think we will go home and book a cruise to the tropics, ‘cause it’s bloomin freezing!

Oops! Sorry Stephen we just sat down to watch the DVD you did for us of the photos and I have left it at Angela’s, hopefully Joan will forgive me eventually.
Lots of love
Bryan & Joan
XXXX