Bonjour!

Hello Britain, France calling! Yep, we’ve strung up some cocoa tins and we’re now online! We’ve just about recovered from the trip down which seemed to take forever, mainly due to mother wanting to stop every two minutes, first for a cup of tea, followed by a trip to the loo. The dogs slept through most of it, dutifully trotting out every third aire for pees and poops, but they had their reward when finally let out into mum’s garden. They went bonkers for about half an hour, but as is always the case with greys, soon got bored and came back to find us in the house. As I speak, they’re looking decorative on the Persian rug.

The warmth and sunshine contrasted nicely with the thunderous rain we endured on the run down to Folkestone. One unexpected downside was that the rain activated the encrusted pig shit on the motorhome roof (it’s stored at a pig farm) and so we were trundling along in a PigPen like miasma for about twenty miles. No wonder we were getting funny looks...I think it had finally worn off by the time we got to Maidstone services as no-one was holding their nose as they walked past. Despite assurances to one another that we wouldn’t fall asleep, we did just that but at least one of us – me – had the sense to set an alarm. A bucket of Costa each later, and we were raring to go.

That didn’t last long as we only rared down to the northern environs of Paris where Morpheus finally caught up with us. A maintained that he only needed a 30 minute nap and he’s be good for another 400 miles – he was out by about, oh, five hours or so, but we finally got under way at about 9am. After the drama of an Aeroflot plane nearly landing on us at Charles de Gaulle (part of the runway actually forms the motorway bridge), it was pretty much plain sailing all the way down to Toulouse.

The dogs are slowly getting used to their new quarters although Susie getting into mother’s special chair this afternoon went down like poo on your plimsoll. And it’s reassuring to know that even all these miles from home, under a cerulean sky amidst the lavender and the vines, Ranger is still there hoovering up everyone else’s dinner. Plus ca change, plus ca la meme chose!