On the Road Again!

I am looking at France. We are away for around three weeks at the moment. I thought I could change the dates and it would only cost us £20 if done online.   WRONG! I went onto the Le Shuttle website. To snip a week off the trip will cost the £20 amendment fee. Then despite all that they want £103 to go a week later! What bloody load of shysters this company are.  Part of the problem is that French campsites seem allergic to staying open after October 1st. Don't the French use their vans and caravans during the Autumn? We could use Camping-Car Park aires, but as the name suggests, most are exactly that. Short term stays rather than somewhere to "holiday". With Reggie onboard not going as far is also a consideration. In the summer I cut out around a 1000 miles out of the itinerary to save travelling in the "heat bubble ". It seems we were lucky as since we returned there have been fires across Spain and France.

Time will tell if this is a good idea or not.  We need someway of keeping the van cooled when we are away. We have several fans that I have blogged about before. They work brilliantly in the van and in the home. https://invictamoto.blogspot.com/2026/07/portable-standing-pedestal-fan.html Evaporative coolers using water aren't new and we already have a small one that we use to point at Reggie in the van. To be honest, it works really well. We saw this one tested by several vloggers and it seems to work. So we took the plunge and ordered one. Full review once it arrives on Monday!!

It has to be sixty years since I last wore sandals.  With the heatwave, my feet have been roasting in trainers and ankle socks.  So Claire suggested I get sandals. I wasn't going to be seen dead wearing "Jesus" sandals or anything with my toes on view. So as usual I went to the Internet.  Sports Direct and other shops i can actually visit.  None appealed.  So it was back to Amazon!  These look a lot chunkier and have "closed toe". Did I say I don't like toes.... They are weird to get used to. Don't think they look too bad? I opted for tan colour although the light blue ones looked really cool too. As long as any sandals are cool.

It's 110 years since our relative William Devall succumbed to wounds on July 16th 1916. Roll of Honour

We cancelled the trip that would have taken us to the Cathargo Malibu factory at Aulendorf mostly due to the weather and that we have a 16yo dog.  He was really not coping with the overly hot weather in June. No one expected to be 1300m above aea level and it being 36°C!! The email to Eurotunnel wasn't as productive as I had hoped.  We could change the date of travel but... the year you can book in is from when the ticket was bought not from when you are booked to travel. I booked the crossing on January 16th. So if we change the date we'd have to travel before then. It's not that great a deal. Hopefully, the weather will start to revert to normal and we can still go in September.  To cancel would lose us over £300. We will have to source breakdown cover for the van and travel insurance for us and of course, repatriation for Reggie. Where to go? Germany still? Or stay more local in France. I had thought of maybe Alcossebre again!!!! Let's see wha...

So. Monday and back to SDEC at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford Kent. Some of the bloods from Friday aren't back from the lab. The blood culture, where they add your blood to two bottles containing something, came back normal.  The indicator about my liver came back lower than Friday. The numbers mean nothing apart from Friday's 500 something is now Monday's 250. The same indicator was 173 in France and 153 two Fridays ago.... They let me go pending further tests including an ultrasound.  Once that's done it's high tail to SDEC. So we are no nearer to knowing what is happening and how to cure it. As a result we cancelled the trip to Norfolk this weekend.

This sets up another World Cup clash with Argentina.  England will now have to contend with the eleven on pitch opponents and the referee and VAR.