Chores done, ready for the ferry …. oh hang on!
Zagan the motorhome is about five metres away from where we touched down in France on 12 October. He’s once again in the aire at Wissant (N50.88741, E1.67075), so Charlie can feel some sand under his paws tomorrow before we get the ferry home.
Today was earmarked as a chores day, the weather kindly helped out by being rainy and grey so we didn’t get distracted from the tasks in hand. We drove past too many more cemeteries on our way to Saint Omer, arriving a couple of hours before Charlie’s appointment at the vets. Parking up by the canal, we unloaded all of our laundry into bags then lugged it to the nearby laundry. We have a washing machine at home, but with the weather forecast not looking great for drying, and living in a tiny house, we’ve opted to make sure we arrive back with as much clean stuff as possible.
As the huge machine (these things will do duvets!) cleaned it all for us we wandered around the corner to Lidl and bought a last few bits and pieces. Sadly there was still no sign of my favourite Lidl chocolates which we got in Spain, but fingers crossed they may make an appearance in the UK for Christmas.
Everyone loves Lidl’s brandy-filled chocs
Once the clothes mountain was tamed we headed back to Zagan, nipping into the friterie for an oversized bag of fries for lunch – yummy! Charlie seemed blissfully unaware of what was about to happen, but to be fair its been a few years since he’s been to the vets here so maybe he’s forgotten. The vets we go to in Saint Omer are wonderful and we use them every time we go back to the UK. We were recommended them by a happy customer over six years ago.
Last time we were here Charlie was 10.7kg, he’s now 11kg – diet time for us all!
This time we saw Dr Gerion who, as always, apologised for her perfect English. With pooch on the table she asked if everything was OK and we told her how Charlie has been having trouble walking, not quite going as far as telling her we call him hobble doggle, but she got the picture. She carefully moved his little legs around he as stared at us wondering what was going on, then she picked him up and brushed his front paws on the table. Only his left leg moved and popped his paw on the table, she tried again and the same result. A bit more manipulation and she confirmed our thoughts, little old pooch has arthritis in his right shoulder and elbow (or should that be knee?), which has caused him to lose some muscle mass on his right side. She also mentioned he might have a problem with his neck, but we need to see if it improves as his leg regains strength.
Popping pooch down on the floor so she could see how he walks, Charlie wandered straight over to a bag beside her desk and flung his nose in. ‘Ah, he has found his Christmas treat’, she exclaimed, so at least we know his nose is working OK. As Charlie crunched a biscuit bone, Dr Gerion talked us through the two different types of medication she’s given him and then gave us a couple more biscuits with a little bow on for his Christmas. Something tells me Charlie will be happy to go back there any time.
Relived that Charlie will be more comfortable and maybe back to leaping around the van again soon, we left Saint Omer, even though there is an aire opposite the vets we fancied some seaside and one final supermarket shop (probably me more than Jay!). We headed west and popped into the huge E. Leclerc at Lumbres (N50.71395, E2.11033) only to discover it has a laundry in the car park – we could have got two chores done at once! We spent an hour wandering around the aisles looking at all the tasty French food, the extra tasty Christmas stuff and the booze! Zagan is now stocked up and ready for the festive period!
Jay in a small corner of the Champagne section!!!
Finally we made our way to Wissant ready to get the ferry from Calais tomorrow. I opened my diary to note what we have spent today and spotted something odd in the entry for tomorrow, we’ve booked the ferry back from Dunkirk!! Ooops. So come quite a long way out of our way for a bit of seaside that we could have got much closer to Dunkirk. Oh well, it’s nice to have come full circle and at least I spotted it today, and not as we rolled up to the ferry tomorrow!
After our blind taste testing of wine yesterday (video to follow shortly) we’ve cracked open a bottle of €2 wine to mark the end of our trip. Tomorrow night we’ll kip in Dover before heading back up the M1 on Thursday – do wave if you see us.
Ju x
Hi.
I’m subscribe but for some reason I’m not getting your post in the last few days.
I need my fix of your travels.
Nora.
Hi Nora – sorry, email still playing up, I’ll try and get it fixed in the next few days, thanks for letting me know, Jay
Hi Guys, not really commented much before. I have really enjoyed
following your latest trip. Looking forward to the next one. Have a great Christmas and New Year……..
Top man, thanks Ricky! Cleaning ourselves up a bit here so we’re presentable for the ferry. Rain threatening, wind rocking, Ju’s less than chuffed about the potential for a rocky crossing. I foresee a tunnel crossing next time if this one’s a bad ‘un. Have a fun festive period yourself! Cheers, Jay
Hi Guys
Absolutely love following you and look forward to seeing where you are everyday.
Not had any emails from you though for the last few days.
Steve and Carol
Hey Steve. Getting a few folks telling us the emails have stopped. Our site host limits us to 500 emails an hour and our subscription system needed changing to throttle down how many it sends to get under the limit. We bought some software to do it, which seemed to work, then I messed with it, then it stopped working! I’ve unmessed with it, so touch wood emails should get pinged out again when we next post some stuff. Cheers, thanks for dropping us a line, Jay
I also amongs many it appears enjoy your emails and look forward to them , but alas I have to report also a lack of them arriving , I hope as you report a fix is on the way or I may require counselling in the new year . I thank you for the pleasure your postings give me and I wish you both a lovely Christmas and many more adventures next year .
What a lovely blog! Really enjoyed it We never miss one of your stories Merry Xmas to you both and Charlie whom we adore!
Hi, I also have missed your last few emails, they are very interesting and helpful as we are in the last planning stages of our own tour of France starting in 2016.
Hope to get them back soon and have a good Christmas and a safe New Year on your next adventure.
Richard, Frankie + Jack ( the dog )
Cheers guys, hopefully the emails will kick off again for the next posts, until then if you head to https://ourtour.co.uk/home/updates you’ll see the full list of posts (a bit of a faff I know…). Take it easy, Jay
Just found your website and it looks brill’, I’ll look forward to reading more. I am just a novice compared with you guys, bought my ‘bus’ in May, set sail June and am now in South East Spain, having gone through France, Northern Spain, Portugal to Gibraltar. I’m on my own and am learning as I go along, but loving it from day one apart from not being able to share some of the amazing sights I’ve seen already. In the new year I intend to head to Croatia via Southern France, Italy and Slovenia, but as you can imagine my timing for 2015 was all wrong. Any advise or what I will learn from your travels will help me greatly I think. Look forward to reading more soon, take care.
Cheers Russ, sounds like you’ve already seen some cracking places and have some plain wonderful new ones lined up. Enjoy ’em all man. Cheers, Jay
Very inspiring. We’re doing the same next year and planning a two-year jaunt where the wind and the sun take us. We will be blogging, too, and maybe some travel writing to keep in Brittany’s good books.
Go Diddy go go! Just beware, those couple of years might end up being a wee while longer… Send us your blog when you bring it to life? Cheers, Jay