Home for the next few months.We met a cute elderly couple from Norfolk who were heading home the following day after doing a 7 week tour of France and Spain, needless to say we spent the next 4 hours firing questions at them. They were so helpful and we were gutted the following morning to find we had overslept and missed them leaving. They had left a gift outside our camper that will definitely help us over the next few months. A site guide and touring handbook with details of 4500 sites in France, Spain, Portugal and Andorra accompanied by a note saying nothing other than 'good luck'. So to the adorable old English couple with the Silver Smart Car, if you ever read this, thank you so much!! Later that day we walked 1.5km to Carrefour to stock up on essentials before heading back and falling asleep in the sun. That night we celebrated the beginning of the adventure with baked Camembert and a bottle of champagne.
Camembert & champagne to celebrate the start of an adventure. Wed 30th we decided to pack a picnic and get out in the sunshine to do some exploring. We followed a 12km trail which took us about 3 hours mainly across farmland and through orchards and vast countryside. Horticulture is huge in this part of France, there are more tractors than cars and more cows than people. When we got back to the campsite we had a quick omelette, put a film on and were all asleep within the opening titles.
Thurs 1st May we woke up to heavy rain so decided to hang around the campsite and spend some time planning the next couple of stops on the map. We pretty much spent all day studying maps, atlases and grazing on bad food.
Friday we were up at the crack of dawn packing everything away ready to head to the next stop. After checking in with family and doing the FaceTime rounds we set off towards Lille. We stopped around 128km south in a town called Aubers. We booked 4 nights on a 2* campsite called Camp des Roses and before setting up camp we went out in search of more food and a new gas bottle. We found a huge industrial estate with everything we needed. After another hour in Carrefour, a large queue at a drive through petrol station and some fairly embarrassing language issues we were soon on our way back to Aubers. We set up camp, did some hand washing (always learning), made some tea and spent the evening scrubbing up on our French...still none the wiser.
Saturday we got up made a selection of sandwiches and were off out on another walk with Oscar to see what was about. We wandered around for about 2 hours, past some huge houses, no two were the same and every other house had a guard dog or sometimes a guard goat neither of which Oscar was bothered by no matter how much noise they made. Luckily enough we managed to find our way back to an open field, probably the only one in Northern France that doesn't home cows or horses so we could let Oscar off his lead. He was running around like a lunatic, as mad as a box of frogs before collapsing in a heap panting for water, think it'll take him a while to acclimatise bless him.
We are adapting well to living in such a compact space and are learning how to make the most of the little room we have. Cooking isn't easy although we've managed a few home made meals including carbonara and chilli.
We left Aubers yesterday morning and travelled 4 hours south to Paris via Saint Quentin. We are staying in Paris for the next few days, no doubt the phones, camera and iPad with be packed with touristy photos in a flash.
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