Canterbury, crossing & chilly/i!

So, here we are. It's now Monday (I think!), and we've now spent 5 nights away properly on #Jexit.

The last few days at home were fairly tiring and emotional at times, so perhaps it's no surprise that since leaving we've averaged over 9hrs sleep every night!

After a good trip, we spent a few hours exploring Canterbury from the fabulous base at the Park and Ride. They have a specific motorhome area of the car park and for £3 per day you can stay over and get the bus into town. We had a nice explore around the place, and found a suitably old hostelry to sample a pint of the local brew.

The following morning we made the trip down to the tunnel and waved goodbye to British soil until Christmas time, assuming all goes to plan. Felt a bit weird, although the emotion of the day before had pretty much left us and we were totally ready for our adventure. As the picture below shows, it's not the fanciest of experiences!

We were greeted by a cloudy and damp France (not dissimilar to what we'd left in the UK to be fair), and did the short drive to Cassel for a spot of lunch & a chance to try some pigeon French to purchase a loaf of bread and a cake for later. Having successfully navigated that, we had to make a dash back to the van as the rain had started in earnest and no one likes a soggy knob....on their bread!

We then made the final hop to a site in Bailleul that we had booked into for our first 3 nights. The site is as we've come to expect in France diversity in action, with this one situated on a working farm with a lovely farm shop. As it was still wet, we were kindly showed to a pitch on a hardstanding very near the shower block and wash up (all good). What we've never had before, was when we started moving the van into position, to be shepherded into place by the resident sheep dog, who with only a couple of hundred hens and 2 goats for company, is clearly missing his true vocation in life. Pascal (as we have named him) did a fine job in squaring us up, making sure we were level, and then peeing on our wheel to mark his territory.

Our first proper night away was of course marked with a nice bottle of wine and a chilli.

After a very peaceful night we elected to enjoy the warm sunny day from the comfort of the van and spend Friday planning and resting. That was until a couple of Welsh newby campers arrived full of all the excitement and vigour you'd expect. They were on their way to Antibes for a sailing course of some sort, and in discussing the various types of campsite, the power of perspective hit me - we talked in brief about using Aires (car park type camping which is fairly commonplace in France), and while Jase and I have always been mostly concerned for general safety in those sort of places, our new neighbours were more concerned with attracting some sort of chien related activity!

Saturday dawned and we had hoped to get out and about to explore the local area, but it was soon very clear that the Beast from the East part II had made it's way across the channel as well, as it was flipping freezing! Luckily we've been blessed with a site which appears to have most of France's internet capabilities so managed to watch pretty much all 3 rugby games and the end of the Milan San Remo cycle race to keep us warm!

We did manage a brief walk around the site, but having seen the icicles on the water pipe, it felt like hunkering down had been the best idea.

Sunday dawned and with some sun pepping through the blinds we were hopeful of getting the bikes out for an explore - now picture this one, Jase having got all the bikes off and Jen all togged up with one shoe on, and it starts to blizzard! Cue a hasty change of plan and a walk into town instead. The wind chill had to be -8 at least, so think we did the right thing there.

It's now Monday, and I have one of the most bizarre locations for writing this blog. We did manage to get out for a ride this morning - not quite as far as we hoped partly due to road closures locally partly due to mildly hypothermic fingers!

There has been talk of us moving on, but for now, and while we wait for the weather to warm up a bit, it seems more sensible to keep enjoying the hot showers, reliable hook up and some peace and quiet.

I truly feel more like a digital nomad know, and while I know not every site will be as well appointed as this, I am more than happy to enjoy it for the next few days

Jen x