On the Road Again!

As well as the France Passion book and app on my phone, there are more apps available. I use Search4Sites and Park4Night apps to look for overnight park ups. They do differ a bit and although they often have the same places, there are many unique to each. Another good app and one we use is the Camping-Car Park app. It shows all the sites they manage and you can book online to reserve a pitch. For FR26 I have been looking at France Passion for stops in the Seine Maritime (76) department.  One is a cider (or cidre) producer and the other an auberge. I have emailed to see if they have a pitch. I have yet to get a reply.  Failing that, there are plenty of Camping-Car Park aires we can use.  I like the idea of France Passion as you stay on farms etc, and then buy products or produce from the hosts. Less impersonal that municipal aires and Camping-Car Park aires. To find places to visit, I have invested in another Rough Guide. This one is "Brittany and Normandy". Ho...

Apart from the possibility of some Champions League or FA Cup games for Arsenal, I have around eight weeks from mid February to plan a trip away. To somewhere warm. That looks like it would be Spain.  As we currently don't have full winter or all season tyres and so any routes taken and any destinations chosen will need to be planned well. I think that Spain would be an ideal destination. But where? Roses?  Or Benidorm??? Let's wait and see when we come back from France and the FR26 tour.

It seems a little early to be booking trips away in 2027 but sometimes there are limited tickets and so you have to book early. Vans in the Valley It seems this is the case with this van life festival. So I booked it. It's around £30 a night for three nights with entertainment etc.  No leccy. And you can stay over until Monday before you have to leave.

We arrive in Calais at the Eurotunnel Terminal at around 9.20am and then head to Cayeux-sur-Mer and the Camping-Car Park aire for one night. One night at the moment.  We have two nights after this before we book into the Sandaya Campsite at Côte de Nacre.  Where to stay? We could stay at Cayeux for two nights. There are places to see along the way that we can build into the roughly 127 miles between the two. I have been hitting Search4Sites to look for places en route.  I have earmarked a visit to the Merville Gun Battery to look around the museum. I emailed and they have spaces for larger vehicles. I'll have to see if I can find a stopover nearby. For either before or after the visit.

I didn't renew our France Passion subscription for 2026 back in March as I didn't think we would get much if any use out of it. The summer holiday that we had booked was mostly in Spain with just a few days in France. I called that SP26 in the tags. Another reason was that the annual October trip was to have been  Germany. With Reggie being old and beginning to dislike being in the van and the car, we decided to cut the journey down and stay in Northern France. It was one of the reasons we booked several campsites for longer stays rather than touring and moving on every two or three days. In the end poor Reggie passed over the rainbow bridge last week. So as we are in France and looking for somewhere different to stay, I re-joined France Passion. Membership runs until 31st March 2027. Although FR26 will be to Normandy and Brittany there is still plenty of scope for a few stays whilst we are away.

Today we drove back up to Burgess FIAT Specialist in Sittingbourne to collect Malibu Molly. I had had a call yesterday to say that it was a battery after all. All the checks we had done concentred the voltage and not the drop in ampage! They tested it in the van, and again bench testing and found that there was a sudden drop in amps until it was unable to start the van. So here we are with a new battery. And another huge bill to cover the work and the new battery.  Of course, she ran perfectly on the way home. At least we can feel more comfortable going to France soon. Old Photo!