Friday
13th April – Saturday 26th April 2012
Wales
and England
With our friends we said farewell to the sheep
and the peat bogs and headed to Dublin for their flight back to Oz and our
ferry back to Wales. After an uneventful trip to Holyhead by ferry and an
overnight nearby, we arrived to find Tim and his yurt in the paddock complete
with canvas roof. Dinner at The Bell at
Skenfrith was delightful, then on Sunday we said farewell to this special part
of the Welsh/England neighbouring borders with rolling hills, frosty mornings
and set off to a National Trust house built in Elizabethan times. We’re always impressed with the standards of
National Trust estates. Canons Ashby did not disappoint. Heavy oak beams, thick walls with murals and
a real, but dead rabbit hanging by the stove in the kitchen near a pot of sage
to capture the period…all as if ready to cook!!
A quick car service and re-registration in
Bedford, goodbye to Em & Sammy, then a visit to Amanda in Rusthall and
overnight with Penny in Fleet – the highlight was dinner at The House at Home
pub owned by Henry Blofeld’s (doyen of cricket commentators) daughter…
Then we had a quick look at Chartwell, home of
Winston Churchill. It was an enjoyable
time seeing this once quite liveable home.
The gardens were beautiful at this time of year.
Germany
We crossed on the Dunkirk ferry, stopped over
in Gent in Belgium for our first night under canvas in 2012, and drove on to
our friends, the Vetters, in Bedburg, Germany. Bedburg has large lignite mines nearby, so our friends showed us a huge open cut lignite mine (une mine de ciel ouvert, as they say). It was interesting and informative to watch the huge excavators in action. Because of mine expansion some of the local towns will be relocated.
What a fun loving family they are – after meeting them
last year in Aix en Provence, we took up where we’d left off and fitted in
immediately. They indulged our taste
buds in a variety of traditional german cooking, shared a pizza party with their friends, who fortunately can speak
English, visited the old walled town and played the odd game of snap with their
lovely kids…ouch…we promise to return for a longer visit next time.
France
On Sunday we headed for Paris – reminding ourselves
about the pressure of autoroute driving…phew…F1 has nothing on that experience! Then we embedded ourselves once again in the
busy, boisterous lives of the cousins, la
Famille Campbell.
Ah to be in Paris in the Springtime…..it’s a
beautiful city. The flowers are
stunning, the trees in the Tuileries are greening up and the food as always is
devine. We have been catching up with
our cousins and learning more about great places to visit. We love their
mastery of the language and their books and their understanding of the
Francophiles. France is in the midst of
a fiery electoral campaign, so watching it unfold in French and understanding
their interpretation of events makes it all the more exciting! Last night Jodie
drove us through the wonderful crazy roundabouts in Paris, to dinner over the
river. Engorging in escargots and
calamars laced with du vin rouge….we’re back in one of the favourite gastronomic
wonders of the world. After dinner, Paris
was abuzz with police and gendarmerie cars and vans hurtling around towards the
Champs Elysees….we learnt later that over 100 police cars had held a protest
along there.
