I am sitting in the car having had our first night in the tent. I am waiting for a kettle to boil it is plugged into the cigarette lighter, this will be our first hot drink. We actually got here about 3.30 yesterday afternoon after a pleasant drive down from Zeebrugge. This was the only campsite we could find near Rouen and it is very basic. The shower block consists of 2 showers. The shower only functions if you put in a token but Bill didn’t understand the lady in charge and thought she said we had to put in a euro coin. We got all our gear together and went into this cubicle to I got undressed ready to step in a hot shower, oh joy. When the euro could not be forced into the slot we realised this was not going to work only then did Bill go out to investigate and found out about the token system. I decided to miss out on the shower and got dressed. The shower will have to wait.

We actually managed to set up camp much faster than I imagined, it was warm when we got here. We decided to look around Rouen and went for a stroll last night ending up buying a pizza each, we were unable to cook for ourselves because our new gas ring would not work no matter what we did.. Rouen is a beautiful place; the cathedral is incredibly ornate. We want to come back to this area and explore it more thoroughly. Bill especially wants to visit the WW1 cemetery where William Wallace (his grandmother’s brother) is buried.

We slept OK, we were exhausted by the time we got to bed and went straight to sleep however we woke up about 4.15 to discover the lilo was rapidly going down and we were practically sleeping on the ground. Bill then started blowing it up himself, poor thing. This worked and we went off to sleep again until bells started tolling at 7 am. I was warm enough during the night but now early morning it is generally damp so we can’t do anything about packing up ‘til everything dries out. It is bliss sitting in a warm car listening to Radio 4 the tea is now ready and it’s heavenly.

Am now in a LeClerc, in free wifi zone as we are still dongle-less thanks to Virgin's incompetence, Bill in supermarket trying to buy a new cooker/stove. camping is expensive! Have now packed up and are hoping to get somewhere near Poitiers tonight. Tell you what it takes longer to pack up than unpack, I
am forever losing things (what's new you ask?). Bye for now, much love Val/Mum/Granny x