If you have been wondering where I have been for the last few weeks (probably not but I can pretend) I’m going to tell you.
We just had our last visitors at the gite leave around the 18th October 08 after a very enjoyable 3 week stay with us, really nice people that we made friends with during their stay, but straight after that we were off to the UK.
We had to stop at a couple of places because we were on route to Scotland for a big wedding at Comlongdon Castle (in the picture) and let me tell you from the South of France that is a long way.
We stopped just north of Paris on the first night in one of those really cheap motorway hotels, what luxury, had a McDonalds and went to bed, this credit crunch is just great isn’t it.
Got copied by email on these words of wisdom as well which I have just got to share with you.
If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.
Well I thought it was funny, and I actually hope it’s true as well.
Anyway back to the trip, took some great pictures which I am going to edit and post on the web, I’ll let you know when but I’ll put a few in here as a little taster. Like this one for instance: –
This was the sun setting just before we got to Paris on our first day of the trip, we were in a really plain flat stretch of road (N20) and then I just noticed that the sun set was really good and with a few wind turbines and electricity pylons I couldn’t resist, this was taken from a moving car so not as good as I would have liked but hey! we were in a hurry that McDonald’s was waiting.
After Paris we set off for Suffolk and a little village called Ixworth to stay with friends, leaving Paris we passed through Senlis, that’s a nice place, and headed for Dunkerque for the ferry, I got a return ticket for 44 pounds through my website pretty good deal really.
The sun was shining and it was a lovely day, the picture above is just to prove it. We got to Dunkerque and the sun was shining and we said to one another, rather naively it has to be said, it’s probably going to be nice in England as well.
We got half way across the channel and the sea turned rough the clouds came over and it started to rain, what we didn’t know was this was going to set the scene right up to and through the wedding day.
Anyway I’ll fast forward a bit, we stayed for our night in Ixworth, nice house, and the next morning we set off for Kirk Deighton in North Yorkshire where we stayed with our in laws for a couple of nights and went to a British pub for the first time in the best part of a year.
Then it was off to Comlongdon Castle and the wedding, we had to drive across country along the A66, the wind was howling and all the high sided lorries were being sent back to the A1 for fear of being blown over, what a cheery day for a wedding.
We finally got to the castle, thank god for Sat Navs, that’s all I can say, it was chucking down but do you know what it was still a brilliant day, all the photos had to be taken indoors but the whole day was fabulous, all the family arriving (some new additions as well, but thats another story) the bubbly started to flow and it all ended up with a hooley, a firework display and some late night drinking in the bar, not like our family at all really.
Obviously this is a private deal so no photos on the web unless I get told I can and except for the ones that have no people in them, like the one of the rain outside.
The big firework display that was planned looked like it might have to be called off but then, almost as if it was to order, the rain stopped, the call went out for everyone to go outside and the fireworks began. I had put my camera away by now as I didn’t want to leave it somewhere by accident (in an alcoholic daze is what I really mean), so didn’t get any shots, you are just going to have to take my word for it when I say it was pretty darn spectacular.
Well that is only half way through week one so I am going to have to fast forward the rest so you don’t all fall asleep on me.
After the wedding day we headed south again, first to Carlisle where we stayed with friends for a night at Cumwhinton, then back to Yorkshire for another night and a family get together for the old uns.
After that it was across to Warrington for a visit to see our little grandaughter, spending the day and night before going even further south to the Forest of Dean to stay with family again and our 8th different bed in as many days.
We stayed in the Forest for the best part of a week visiting sisters daughters and sons in and around Gloucestershire, actually got to see my youngest grandchild for the first time and what a little Bobby dazzler she is.
We had one final night in the UK at my brothers in Bexley Heath and then it was bye bye Grande Bretagne and we were off to Germany for a week with our daughter, we stayed there long enough to celebrate the wife’s birthday and got to go to a really good bonfire night and firework display at Rheindahlen, the week went really quickly and before we knew it we were heading back to France where we had the most amazing drive down the A75 and to the Millau viaduct, watch this space for another hubpage.
So you can see we have not exactly been twiddling our thumbs and I did manage to post a hubpage during the trip and stay on top of most of my email, albeit some people really should make their wireless networks secure if you know what I mean.
It’s good job we took some of that really good (but cheap) French red wine back with us as well because there are some thirsty people out there.
Oh and the final bed count was 12 in 3 weeks, not too shabby really.
Well that’s it for now, back to work with lots of house renovation stuff to get on with.
Try and make the next one an update on the SEO stuff I promised a while ago, its taking a while but it will be good when I get there.