After a very eventful day yesterday - great morning at Church, fantastic performance with Rock Choir at the Carfax Bandstand at 1 o'clock as part of Horsham's English Weekend (fundraising for the Samaritans), lots of organising, packing and getting ready for the off, we left home around 7.30 to stay the night with Peter, Hannah and the children in Otford.
This morning we were up early and walked to school with Emilie and Adam in the sunshine. We shall miss them so much, but look forward to hearing from them while we are away. The "Spirit of France" brought us across a millpond-like Channel and we began our journey, first driving along the autoroute that is now bordered by 2 high barbed-wire fences each side. The 'jungle' looks quite different to last time we came this way - the camp seems more organised with proper tents and shelters with a separate cleared area with receptacles for rubbish and a football pitch.
Although there were quite a few artics en route, the motorways in France are so empty compared with the UK. So we happily pootled along until just after Arras, where we needed to pay the toll. The automatic machine swallowed our card and spat it out again, but didn't issue a receipt or display on the screen how much - have to check that later. We were aiming for a 'France Passion' overnight stopping place for motorhomers, in the village of Riencourt-les-Cagnicourt. We have stayed at some stunningly beautiful ones on vineyards and farms, but have also come across some that are very odd. This one was of the odd variety - called "Au Rythme des Saisons" and advertised fruits and legumes on a placard. But the buildings were dilapidated and the area to park on was a gravelled entrance up to a large bolted gate. A sign did say if nobody around, go to house No.2 - John did that (around the corner) but behind another locked gate was an enormous barking hound! We never saw a soul - what an empty village. During the evening John began entering all the important expenditure on his spreadsheets: Tolls - ?? Overnight cost - €0 !!
Tuesday 10th May
Some rain in the night, but otherwise peaceful .... until the church next door rang its bells for around 10 minutes, from 7.30 am! Still, we needed to be up to go and buy our baguette, but the only shop in the village was a shuttered tabac, so we stopped at a Hyper U en route. Lunch was by the Canal de la Marne a la Saone at Hallignicourt, near St. Dizier (in sunshine after rain) and our home for the next 2 nights is Camping La Forge de Sainte-Marie at Thonnance-les-Moulins east of Joinville. We've enjoyed our meal outside on a lovely sunny evening and had a walk around the site. Will explore further afield tomorrow.
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