On the Road Again!

After a few days of being back and the van stationary on the driv3 I had a look to see the mileage we did.  Unfortunately I reset Trip B at Plymouth just before we got on the ferry. I'd forgotten it at home before the trip. So the mileage for the trip comes out at 1610.6 miles. Plus whatever from Home to the dockside. Before setting off I withdrew €200 from the foreign exchange office in Folkestone.  That went into the wallet with the €5 note from last time. I had €8 in 50c to €2 coins.  From that starting point we have come back with €85 in notes. The largest cash payments were to the vets and totalled €105. On top of that we spent £955.85 on the Clarity card. We use it for everything.  I don't think that's bad given we were away for 21 days in total.

Following the advice of the doctor in France when we left the hospital in Calais, I tried the e-Consult service.  After typing in all the details it said I had to call them instead. As it was after hours on Thursday it meant calling Friday morning.  I got through and it was phone back time. Spoke to the doc twice between 1200 and about 1240. We were told to go to the Same Day Emergency Care at the William Harvey in Ashford.  Off we went.  Around five hours later we finally saw the doctor. They'd taken blood. I'd given urine.  Then I went down to get a chest x-ray. The doc looked at the French paperwork and there were some of the indicators that were too high, that two days later were still high. They've let me go and I am supposed to go back to SDEC on Friday morning at 9am. Let's see.

That Leisure Shop came back quite quickly and have refunded the money.  It's a shame that they weren't up to the job. They are a really good idea but needed to be a little more robust.

After getting back from three weeks in Spain and France where the weather was abnormally hot we decided we can't put our old dog through that anymore. As he has got older he is less happy travelling in the car and in the van. He doesn't settle like he used to and it's unfair on him. Once I can get through to Eurotunnel I can cancel the booking. In the past they haven't refunded the fare but have deferred it as a credit to be used within 12 months. We shall see. It will save us some money as our travel insurance for us and the van ends on August 28th, and we would have needed to renew that. The dog comes before holiday travel. Let's see what the future brings.

What a couple of days these turned out to be!! The rough plan was to leave Bernay and with only 60 miles to the vets in Buchy, to call in somewhere on the way.  I had toyed with the idea of Monet's Garden at Giverny, but it doubled the mileage to Buchy. On top of that we had a long drive to Calais and the CCP after the vet. Instead I saw the Le Bec Hellouin was en route. So we set off.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bec-Hellouin A few miles short I began to shiver and feel really cold.  By the time we had followed the signs to the campervan parking it was much worse. It's a long wa...

Today what should have been around a 240 kms drive in pretty much a straight line was far more complicated by TomTom. Checking the route on Google Maps and on MyRouteApp was far more direct than the ridiculous roundabout route chosen by TomTom.  We did take a look at the Chateau at Chaumont sur Loire and they have motorhome parking in with the coaches.  And that was the problem.  There were six coaches and their passengers were queuing to get into the chateau gardens. We decided to crack on. Chaumont was on the original route! It was after here that things went wrong that also meant more miles and of course, more tolls on a variety of motorways.  We stopped for lunch on the A28 and then set off again. Their was a fenced dog area, but Reggie couldn't be less interested.  We arrived at the CCP aire at Bernay at 2.33pm. NO problems with the barrier this time. ...

Remember when both the chairs and the rooflight went tits up we were in France and not at home in the UK. Email was therefore the contact tool available.  1) Pilton Compact Chairs . Following my email to That Leisure Shop on Saturday, I had a standard "out of office" reply. I included photos of the bent tubing. It was probably naive of me to expect a proper reply on Monday. Maybe Tuesday? Nothing. 2) Remis Rooflight .  I emailed ARC who did the work on the taps. They replied quickly and once they viewed the photos of the rooflight, they found the kit that would repair the winding mechanism. They offered a date and I accepted the invoice quote and date to run it up there. Excellent service.