A happy Christmas and New Year to all our readers

We wish you a happy Christmas and an even better New Year

Noel and Jennifer

Well after an early morning start from home we headed towards Folkstone and the Channel Tunnel for a quick trip across the English Channel, or under it really!

We arrived near Lille Airport and stopped for lunch in a nice restaurant that Noel have eaten at before whilst on business a business trip in this area.
The prime reason for this visit to Lille, apart from increasing our wine stocks in time for Christmas, was to visit a number of Bathroom shops to get ideas for the development of our house in Weybridge. The price of bathroom furniture appears to be around 30 per cent cheaper than the UK and with a bigger choice.

It was raining but we still spent late Monday afternoon walking around Lille old town. We were hoping to visit the Christmas Market but unfortunately it was closed so we went to see the film by Sacha Baron Cohen, 'Bhorat' a tour of America, really quite funny, followed by a visit to a small restaurant for a Gallette Raclette and a wee drop of the house red wine. Excellent.

Tuesday was a beautiful day but cold. This was a great day to walk around the town and see all the sites, well almost all. The Christmas Market was in full swing with many English people and school parties there. The atmosphere was tremendous and so was the Hot mulled red wine. That evening was spent with my ex- business colleague Laurence Henno and her husband with their son Nicolas , a very pleasant evening indeed but a bit late.

We were staying in an Hotel called Alliance Couvent des Minimes, which is an old Convent which has been converted in to a very nice Hotel indeed and it is well placed if you want to walk around Lille old town.



One thing about France is their love of lunch, where else in the world would you find somewhere in the middle of a busy Town where you can park your car for free at lunch time, albeit only for 90 minutes. On Wednesday we left the Hotel and headed South towards the French part of B & Q called Castorama. As previously mentioned these stores sell pretty much the same as you get in your local B & Q but much much cheaper. One item selling for 850 Euros was a combined power shower and walk in shower cabinet with multiple smaller outlets that sells in the UK for £1450.00. You work it out, is this a rip off or what??
The Castorama we visited was at a new 'Centre Commercial' about 15 miles south of Lille in an area the size of Heathrow Airport, if not bigger, and it had just about every major department store chain known to man. There were also cinemas and multiple restaurants. We visited 'Auchan' in a building about the size of Wembley Stadium, most impressive and the choice was phenomenal. For anybody that's interested it is off Junction 17 of the A1 between Lille and Paris. We will return!!! Then back to the coast for our train back to 'Blighty', we made it back to Weybridge by 7pm. I could not believe the M25 was so quick, I can only assume there was an accident somewhere holding them all up. A very good journey indeed.