Even more of the same:- relaxing, shopping and swimming

Well as the title suggests we have not done much more than that. The weather is now very good and hot and swimming in the poo, is great and you don't get cold as soo as you leave the pool.

The site is in the process of being sold to a French Company called Hutopia who set themselves up as a nature friendly site only its  not looking that way since they took over the running of the site last year. During the past week I have been drawing up a list of failures  of the site management, its rather stupid to put somebody who has never managed a caravan site before in charge, apparently they have both worked on sites in the past but that does not make them managers. With Hutopia philosophy , if you have been on an aircraft then you can certainly fly it. 

My plan is to let the staff know that there are problems and then write to their Hutopia Managing Director and let them know we we and other regular campers think of their lack of organisation. We learnt yesterday that the staff thought the swimming pool was a natural pool and di not need any chemicals to ward of disease and health risks which did not go down well.

We have spent perhaps more than a little timer watching the world cup football what with its ups and downs. Germany out is quite unbelievable but of course we got exited after England beet a nothing side 6-1 but not so excited when we lost 1.0 to the Belgian EU side. We shall see what happens over the next few weeks but somehow what with all the hype I don't thin England will get to the final unless the opposition capitulates.

We have done a couple of local walks around the site area, its so nice and quiet here only spoilt by the sounds of tractors ploughing or collecting hay fort the winter months.

Last night we hosted dinner for Ingrid and also two Dutch guys, one has been coming here for over thirty years and he came a child with his parents and returns every year for about a month and it was an nice warm evening and so we enjoyed a nice dinner of cold salmon with a large choice of salads and finishing with a nice fruit pie and some English Cheddar cheese.

We are now beginning to think about the packing up routine, we have to clean the windows of the awning  before packing away and as the weather is due to get very hot, perhaps as much as r 30 Degrees centigrade we have started doing the odd bits and pieces so as to avoid having to pack up in the hot sun.

It looks liker Mrs Merkel last days are in sight with senior boss of Bavaria calling for closed borders, which the EU wont allow, should be fun watching how the EU extract themselves from this self inflicted mess.

NO entry to EU Senior Politicians after BREXIT complete

Many years ago we went and joined a health club in Weybridge and at the interview we sat down and had a cup of coffee and and nice tour around the really excellent facilities and were very pleased to see such a nice place near our home and so we signed up a and used the facility for many years, we had to pay of course, but we did not mind as it was great for swimming and the food in the bar was pretty good to. But after Noel retired and we started our world travels we found that to pay the yearly membership of several thousand pounds became a little expensive for the amount of time we were using it, bearing in mind we were often out the country for eight months a a time, and so we decided to quit.

So we called for a meeting and we explained the position and they said we are really very sorry to see you go and we will help you sell your club debenture and should you ate any time wish to re-join we are sure they could help us and it was a pleasant meeting. What they did not do is go round and beat us up, set fire to our house and say you cannot leave the country and we know where your kids and family live.

So this is the EU where u join the club and get the coffee but the moment you say you have gad enough of the bad financial management by unelected officials??? we don't want to join a European Army etc they try to beat us up. You will have to pay to come to Europe, you cannot fly over our territory, and we will make it is as difficult as possible for you to leave and then some. The EU cannot manage its own current responsibilities and many countries are now looking to get out, let alone go against the policy of allowing any Tom, Dick or Harry in to the EU. Politician are generally crap, but the EU Politicians doe not even meet the main criteria and they thinks that they are being clever.

The like’s of Juncker, Barnier and all the other top officials should be banned from ever visiting any UK territory once we are outside of the EU as payback for their utter stupid remarks and their failure to recognise that its the people who decide what they want and that its Politicians job to do it, see Switzerland for a good example of pure democracy.

There was a meeting earlier this week where the Willie Walsh of BA/Iberia etc and Ryan of Ryanair met with EU officials over the continuing strikes in Air Traffic Control, about 375 strikes over ten years with the vast majority in France, and this affected many  million of innocent travellers and what has the EU done to solve the matter, absolutely nothing-Brilliant.

The ongoing problems with Illegal Immigrants has not been resolved as many countries are now rejecting anybody that attempts to land, for true Refugees  no problem as far as I am concerned but financially incentivised illegal migrants NO.

So that's my rant for today which perhaps wont make a slight bit of difference but makes feel a whole lot better

The days are flying by but we visited Falaise

Well the days were going by and we were doing our usual shopping trips and enjoying the not bad weather but decided as they were going to cut the grass around us, which looked more like a hayfield than a camp site, we decided that a day out is called for. But before this we decided to create a list of what we need to do when we eventually get back to Weybridge and decided there was a quite a lot to do and so we have decided to go home one week early to give us more time for new passports etc etc. So a quick call to Brittany ferries and we moved our booking forward by one week to the 14.00 sailing on Wednesday 4th July-Yes USA Independence day- and this is one week before Mr President Trump descends on Windsor which will no doubt cause road chaos for miles around.

However, back to Wednesday, so we departed the site around 11.00 and set the Sat Nav to the shortest route which always means i takes you that way through country lanes and it always works out very well, not to be don with a caravan in tow though. We arrived at this Norman castle which is in a poor shape but it was one of the homes of dear William the Conqueror. We new that on Wednesdays in France, that in the afternoon most shops close, but today not only were  the shops shut but that the main road through the historic part of town was also partly closed to cars and pedestrians for road works, although neither of us were sure about a long walk in the sun in 24 degrees Centigrade. We sat by the castle walls and had a baguette lunch that we had purchased earlier in the day and in the car park was a nice blue KN truck.

We drove round to look at the caravan site which overlooked the castle and it looks quite nice but perhaps a little crowded compared to where we are. It would be worth a night or two to spend time visiting the castle and the town but not stay there for any length of time as we like it here in the Chateau Camping.

Last weekend we watched some of the 24 hour Le Mans Race and pleased to see Toyota win for Fernando Alonso and also have been watching the World Cup on our TV with the Satellite connection. There have been some really good games such as one of the first of Spain vs Portugal, perhaps the game of the tournament, we shall see. The English team did quite well but let us see how they are against really good competition. France has been poor considering the starts that they have but Argentina was a disaster.

Well after three days they are still cutting some of the very long grass but with only one guy its going to take a long time, when it was run by Mdm Charles there were two gardeners and they kept the place really looking tidy but one gardener, Jean Charles, is struggling. The reception staff are also supposed to help but really that is a lost cause, so lets see what happens next year when Huttopia finally take control which is now expected on 2nd July, we shall see.

Oh well that's it for the moment,, photos will be added when we get home as internet is to slow for the sizes of photos were have taken

Thursday 14th June up to Sunday 17th–A busy time indeed

With the weather being rather mixed, on Thursday we went in to Liseaux for Jennifer to visit a shoe shop where she was able to purchase two pairs for a good competitive price. As perhaps previously mentioned Noel has been trying to resolve t WIFI hotspot problem with a new Sim card for the car and it by some luck was able to resolve it whilst Jennifer was shopping.

Friday was an even busier day as Noel decided to polish the caravan and this took about three hours with the odd five minute break but it looks so much better and will make it easier to clean when we finally get home in July and move it to the storage site and put the cover on as we doubt we will be using it again this year, we shall see. In the meantime Jennifer has been sewing some sequins back on to her long dress which now looks much better.

We have had a few BBQ ‘s although on Thursday night we had purchased some nice cod from Leclerc Supermarket along with some lamb chops and also some pork steaks and so we were set up for the next few days dinner. We have started having a late breakfast followed by a late afternoon Dinner with just the odd cup of tea and biscuit in between, I am not sure whether this will bring about any wait loss but we feel good about doing it.

We have done quite a few walks around the site looking at the new and old residents and there is a constant movement of people who only come for a couple of days and use it as a staging post to elsewhere, a lot seem to go to the Loire Valley , Boring!!!, but we like it here. Jennifer met a couple who had just retired and had a new motor home and he is still unsure of the height and seems to panic a little when he goes out shopping as to whether he can get under the barrier at Leclerc in Lisieaux. What surprised Jennifer was there lack of knowledge of Ferry routes and was surprised to hear there was a ferry from Portsmouth to Caen, they live in Woking?.Oh well they will learn.

The World Cup Football has started and we can watch it on our TV in the caravan and so we have watched a few games so far and surprised about Germany losing and Switzerland holding Brazil to a draw, but was it a foul which allowed the Swiss goal, the Swiss say NO but the rest of us say YES.

In the meantime we are looking forward to England's first game and lets hope they do well and get over the first game nerves on Monday.

we have also been a bit busy organising a BBQ for our friends from New Zealand and also other events planed for our return including an early visit to pick up the cine films now converted to Digital and then on to see Joanne and the family in Taunton. In the meantime Michael and |Becky are enjoying about a weeks holiday in Lido de Jessolo in Ital and will be visiting Venice this week. The weather also soiunds good as they have been on the beach a few times..

Oh well must go as lunch is nearly ready.

We are on the road to Rouen- as the song goes, or something like that

An early start for us this morning as the weather was looking quite promising according to the Meteo and Yahoo weather and so around 10.30 we left for Rouen using what the SATNAV calls the shortest route. We did this once before some years ago and the shortest route was a really lovely trip through the countryside involving small towns etc., really lovely.
The last bity of the arrival in to Rouen took us on a rather a devious route along by the river, albeit the wrong side, going through the dock area whereas the other side has all the hills and trees and nice views, ah well at least it got us to where we wanted to be. We found a car park in the centre of town and just squeezed under the max height bar by  about 6 cms but were lucky also to find a space which would allow us to park our rather large car.
From there we went to the beautiful old  Hotel de Bourgtheroulde which is pretty much in the centre of town and as it was lunchtime and they have nice Loo’s we decided to have lunch there which was very good as they were able to understand Noels wishes that food should not contain garlic etc.,  After lunch we walked down to the river where there were three large river cruise boats, one  Viking  Rolf from the Viking Line, One from Avalon Line and one other who we did not recognise. The Avalon ship looked the nicer with bigger windows and what seems like a really nice restaurant and lounge, perhaps we will try it some day.
We then wandered along the various streets and visited a couple of churches and then a nice cup of tea before heading back to the car park. We did notice however there appeared to be a lot of beggars and street sleepers about which always makes a town look poor. Ironically good friends of our who were visiting Austin in Texas found the same thing, it was not like that when we visited it last early in 2015.
The sun was shining on the way back to our caravan site but we stopped by the local town Courmeilles to pick up some smoked salmon and baguette for tea. In the evening we watched the German made film ‘Das Boat’ which is well made although the models were not the most realistic, but it was 1986, but nevertheless a good film.
And so to bed after a pleasant day where we were able to stretch our legs and knees etc.

The weathers not good so here is a Political Blog for a change

Having watching the American Public, or some of them, continuing to hate the President ie Mr Trump is beginning to make me a little bit mad.
President Trump won an election that was not rigged by the Russian’s but lost by the Clintons who lost all idea of what they are !! The recent condemnation in You tube, and other appalling cartoons and videos is beginning to show that many American are not proud of their nation and in certain instances would like to have another war rather than peace. The current North Korean situation is a good example of somebody trying to do some good and resolve an issue rather than blasting in with ten’s of thousands of troops which in the long term does no good at all, Iraq and other Mid East Countries which we seemed to have messed up entirely on the so called grounds of giving the people want they want.
In Iraq, there are too many factions who want control and Saddam did this very well, although I do not admire his methods, but there was a sort of peace and organisation but now it is very much the wild west with a situation where many locals say it will blow up internally again as there is nobody to stop it. Not even the USA and Brit forces can have a say as they screwed it up in the first place in my view.. Leave well alone is often the best practise unless you know there can be a good outcome which is fully planned.
President Trump and his team have seem to pull off a good result in the North Korea discussions and time will confirm whether it will work but it was a damn sight better then sending in troops. Some of the American press continues to degrade what Trump is trying to achieve, but he is not a politician and that is the problem, in their eyes. To many  leaders love to play Politics, in other words leave things as they are so its not in a  bigger mess from when they first got  elected and so the general public never ever profits or see’s a good result. 
The EU is great example of how to do things badly, loads of pomp and rubbish and hours of talking about the size and shape of fruit on one hand whilst making sure that they do not lose out personally financially. France has somehow enjoyed a a good status on its farming needs and subsidies whilst the UK suffers and a bit like the UK Fishing Industry unable to fish in its own water???
To have a Mr Trump as the the UK prime minister and the nearest to that is the Mr Nigel Farage who again bucks the system. 

As you may understand from this piece I have no time for politicians as they only want to butter there own bread and forget why they are in place and to ensure a place in the House of Lords????(wrong description) Wanker's is more like it who all they do is to turn up to have a good rest and collect some under earned cash whilst claiming all sorts of expenses and enjoying cheap food and wine at the UK taxpayers expense.
So that's my moan for today, The American people should stand by their President even if thy did not elect him as all they do is degrade themselves by criticising  him is such a petty way. You never know but he might just end up as the best President for many years and then how will you feel Hillary???????????.
Please remember what they said about President Reagan, an actor so how can be a real President but somehow he made a good job of it and did not line his own pocket unlike many current politicians do.

In the meantime the weather this morning was bad but in the afternoon it improved much. Tonight we has a cold prawn starter followed by some of the best salmon grilled I have had in years, thanks to the Mrs..

9and 10th June- Two BBQ’s, some rain and the Canadian GP

Well its been a really mixed bag of weather over the weekend with some really warm sunny weather and then an hour so later some heavy rain and overcast with clouds etc., but that's Normandy weather for you.

Saturday was mostly spent rather quietly following Jennifer's little accident with a nose butting of my chair and so it was all about letting her have a good rest . On Saturday evening we BBQ’d some very nice Pork steaks which has been nicely marinated with Hoi Sin sauce and together with a mixture of salads and a small glass of wine we had a lovely evening meal in the warmth of the sun. We tried to get the qualifying for the Canadian GP and by the time had sorted out all the does and don’ts it was rather late and so we had an early’ish night and hit the sack, as they say.

On Sunday morning Noel involved in understand how we could see Sky Sports Channel via the PC with a HDMI Cable to the TV and after about an hour, as the Wi-Fi is very slow here he succeeded and so we hope to watch the race later this evening. So another BBQ late in the day with a nice Costco Sirloin steak and again with salads and followed by a couple of scoops of chocolate ice cream , and of course a small glass of French plonk.

The connection to the Wifi was set up and all the signs in’s to Sky Sports were Ok and we were able to watch the majority of the race without to much trouble although we did lose the Wi-Fi signal a few times as it had started to pour with rain and that always causes a loss of signal. Our caravan is about 300 metres from the wireless antenna and so Noel had brought a long a Wi-Fi extender which is working well but only if the main antenna is working properly. But the campsite is several miles outside of the nearest town and is very suitable for emails and some internet use but its struggling with  downloading a TV programme but hey ho! it worked enough for us.

We went to bed with the sound of rain on the caravan roof which can be quite soothing sometimes. Lets hope the weather picks up for tomorrow.

More of the same-which is really great

Well in the morning we drove in to Courmeiles and visited our local fresh fish shop and purchased some nice cod for later in the day and then on to Carrefour for the rest of our food including two rather good looking lamb double chops and also some pork shoulder which also looked great and both will be good fro grilling.

The weather is a little better today with some sun but not in anyway cold and so we enjoyed a nice glass of Chardonnay with our excellent fish which we chose to grill today with nice new potatoes and fresh veggies.

Friday was a nice weather day and our Dutch rent a tent people are leaving today and so Noel went over to say good bye on Thursday evening as earlier in Thursday something that he ate on Wednesday, probably one of the starters gave him some tummy problems, Ugh u have to be so careful what you eat when you have a reduced colon. Its a bit of a pain when you try to avoid certain foods but there are still some out there that cause problems but you don't know what it is.

The lunch was the lovely lamb chops together with a hot dog with salads and it all went down well including the apple tart and chocolate ice cream. So by having a late breakfast and then a m id afternoon dinner we are not hungry at night and so a biscuit and cup of tea go down well.

Jennifer, unfortunately, had a slight accident by tripping over the awning whilst hold Noel hot cup of tea and banging her nose on Noel’s chair which immediately set about a rather powerful nose bleed. It took a little while to stop and was a a bit of a shock to us both but later in the evening she seemed a little better and was able to stay up and watch the next part of ‘The Bridge’ the new series on BBC2, and it really good but so many twists and turns, just  like that road in San Francisco used in the Bullet film .

Our granddaughter Katherine is getting her school uniform today, she starts in September , wow doesn't time fly by.

We have also spent a couple of hours with regard our forthcoming cruise's and far eat visit as we both need new driving licence, Noel needs a new Passport and therefore a new USA ESTA, and we also need to ensure we can fine a good aparthotel in Tokyo. We did find a different one to where we stayed last time as we thought a change might be good and so we found a Trip Adviser recommended place near Asakusa which is a quite a different area to Shinjuku where we stayed last time. I am glad that we thought about booking as about an hour later I read that the Japanese Government have clamped down on the AirBnB brigade requiring the home owners to have a special licence and so up to 30000 bookings for AirBnB will have to be cancelled thereby putting pressure on other aparthotels and regular Hotels.

Well it looks like that Trump is giving the G& a bit of a shake up, that cosy little group who meet occasionally to enjoy bullshit meetings which never seem to bear any fruit or benefits for the world population and of course they are a little anti at there new trade policy which many countries have been taking advantage over for many years.

Well I am writing this on Saturday morning and its bright and warm and some campers with their kids have just been swimming so all is not bad and hope that Jennifer's nose does not hurt to much, but perhaps a glass of something might improve the situation.

Its still raining a bit!!

Well it was a bit colder this morning and so Noel spent some time updating the Blog and apologising for not updating it more often but sometimes you cant make stuff up.
However, it was planned to have lunch out at one of our favourite restaurants and we are going to the Le Petit Beaumont at Beaumont-en-Auge which is up in the hills and about 35 minutes from here. The back roads which we use to get there wind through some lovely countryside and are pretty much only suitable for cars, and to be honest, cars that are smaller than ours. So we were rather surprised as just as we turned in to one road out came two giant car transporters and of course loaded with new cars and we wondered how the heck did they ever get there. Ten minutes later we came across a very large coach which we had to follow for a few  miles before it turned off, most unusual to see this type of motor activity in the hills.

The restaurant was not to busy and they offer a buffet starter with a limited choice of four main courses and then a choice of desert for 15.50 Euros and its always of a good quality. So for good measure we kicked off with two glasses of Kir, which were actually quite large, and Noel discussed his eating requirements with the waitress who then came back and informed him that none of the main dishes were suitable as all they all contained garlic and in certain cases onion and so how about a hamburger, what to do but go for it.  Jennifer had the pasta dish which was not only piping hot but quite large and after a buffest starter was struggling towards the end however did manage a desert.

We needed to get some fuel for the car and so headed down the hill to the Total garage in Pont L’Eveque , not the cheapest , but fuel prices seem to be sky rocketing at the moment no doubt due to the Middle East issues again.
When we got back to sun was warm and so we both had a little kip in the awning and then deciding that we had eaten enough that day and settled for a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.
We then had a brief evening of TV and watched the Chateau DIY and then a very interesting travelogue on the Caribbean and particularly Honduras which seems quite horrendous as this moment from a safety point of view

Where does time go and the weather changes are also dramatic a catch up after a few days off blogging

Well we have been doing scanning of Photos for the last few days and sometimes the weather has been really fantastic but in the last few days its turned back to its well known Normandy weather of attempting to be nice but in fact it pours with rain so hence the photos scanning.

The software counts up each time you save an image and if you add all the different sets together we have scanned nearly two thousand photos since we got here and the end came on Tuesday the 5th Noel reached the last set of photos. All the photos produced by Jens Dad Cyril have now all been saved for posterity and some of the older photos and transparencies were in a poor state and so we are glad that we did it. Ironically the last photos that Noel put on the scanner both relate to Hong Kong Days. The first lot were the photos taken at the Hong Kong Club in 1975 where there was a large cocktail party of ab55 staff out 100 guests came to say farewell to Gero and hello to Noel. All the great and good of Dodwell and Jardine were there and it was a really scary occasion for me. The final set of photos scanned were of my FEI leaving dinner at a Chinese Restaurant in Kowloon with about  five tables, so about 55 staff in attendance where the major event of the evening was the sup[rise visit of Jennifer who had been back alone in the UK for about four months and the staff arranged a free ticket with Cathay Pacific to bring her secretly to my farewell party, an emotional moment.

In the meantime the weather has been rather poor since last Sunday with lots of rain and on writing this today the ground outside the caravan is a rather soggy and we understand that the weather should improve again tomorrow but we shall see.

So, for the past few days we have been filling our day with photo scanning, shopping and enjoying nice food with the odd BBQ thrown in for good measure so nothing really exciting but as Noel wanted to get all the photos scanned we are pleased to have finished this part of the job. The next part is to look at the photos and try to improve them by cropping and digitally enhancing them but really that can only be done back at home on a large screen with a much faster computer and this will also take some time plus collecting the hours of cine films which have now been transferred to a digital format so still lots of work to do yet on this and still not sure if we will complete prior to our departure on our next trip.

Noel has also given the trusty Acer notebook a clean out of old files as it was getting rather slow and now its much better. Last night we watched the German made film called DOWNFALL which is all about the last few months of Hitler in Berlin and his belief he could still win the war and blaming everybody else when it did not work out. A really excellent but long film but well acted and the guy who played Hitler was very good and as many people a certain scene in the film has been used countless times to talk about other events.

I am writing this report on Wednesday morning and we are booked for lunch in one of our favourite restaurants up in the hills in Beamont-en-auge and we have a table booked at the Le Petit Beaumont Hotel and Restaurant and we have actually stayed there some years with friends whilst touring France

Well that's it for the moment whilst the on/off meeting between Trump and Kim seems to be back on again and at the same Hotel in Sentosa Island, Singapore that Jennifer and I stayed at many, many years ago when on our way home from NZ and OZ visit.