Exciting times in the camp again. Lets face it, we have lots but this is a good one, especially if you’re Amanda - we have kittens! They have arrived a little earlier than planned but circumstances dictated their inclusion into the fold. Last Saturday night at about nine thirty, there was a knock at the door. It was Emma, Peter & Pam’s daughter, holding on to two tiny black kittens. “They followed two of the walkers back from the village”, she said, “what am I going to do them?”

Easy answer to that one. Within ten minutes a blanket and box was prepared and they went into our shower. Having just got out of it, I dressed and walked (limped, but that’s another story) up into Reeth to try and find their owner. It took me about half an hour to find her. It was pretty obvious that whilst they weren’t being mis-treated, they weren’t exactly getting their needs as twelve-week-old kittens met. I suggested this to her at which point she admitted she wanted to find them a new home. So I said we’d take them to France with us and that they had a good new home.

I got back to find Amanda cooing over a box of black fur, having already discovered their quite different personalities and deciding which was Coco and which was Gigi. She was disappointed to learn that I had found their owner and delighted that she was now their new mum.

Gigi is the smaller and most feisty one. She’s a bit braver and more sociable. Coco is a little more in her own space but nonetheless a very amicable little thing. Gigi seems to have made her allegiances with Amanda and Coco with me. And that’s just in 72 hours. So far there have been no allegiances with Pooch and there’s a definite tension between them. If he’s too close they hiss and spit at him and in return he snaps at them. At the moment it is not all love and peace. They are all very interested in each other, but the cats are just unaware that he’s a big softy and won’t harm them. I guess that’ll change with time.

As for the rest of the news, all is going apace with our purchase at La Besse. We should be all sorted within the next week or so. Only another 5 weeks and we’ll be French residents. Have to say we are really looking forward to the move. I have been busy working out the holiday cottages and the end barn and putting together budgets and spec sheets. I think I’ll start a new blog when we move. Watch this space! Right now we are in Cumbria and on Thursday we head to Warwickshire to see my brother and revamp his kitchen. Kinda get back into working. We spent a full day dragging out the storage unit and repacking ready for moving the other day. I was knackered.

Anyhow, there’s a little video of the kittens for you. More soon I hope!

New Photos

Click on the link on the right

Floozie2 is For Sale

Yes! You have read it right. It just goes to show what a difference a few months make

I know it’s been a absolute age since I updated the blog and one hell of a lot has happened since including a trip to Mauritius, Paris and London, life in France, a health scare and most importantly a change in life direction.

I’m not dwelling on the health scare, which was me for a change and has now passed, mostly. The trip to Mauritius was truly brilliant, the holiday of a lifetime to celebrate our forthcoming vows ceremony and Amanda’s 50th birthday. We also spent time in London and Paris, falling head over heels for the latter and enjoying the vibrancy of the West End in the former. Finally, after 15 years of owning the CD, we went to se Les Miserables and we were totally blown away by it. I was so overcome with emotion that it was 20 minutes before I could talk to Amanda, knowing full well that if I tried I’d dissolve into tears. YES! It is that powerful and beautiful.

Paris is just glorious with more highlights than we can shake a stick at, but one of the best was dinner on the ‘Bateau Mouche’ on the Seine (very romantic) and seeing all our favourite impressionist artists’ paintings in the flesh as it were. Being big fans of Monet and Renoir, it was a joy to see them. Also Van Gogh, whose work is extraordinary.

The photos posted on the blog give a pictorial view of the past few months.

Last week’s events however do need fleshing out a little bit. After eighteen months of planning our weekend of celebrations to renew our vows and Amanda’s birthday came to fruition in perfect style. The weather was kind, remaining dry and overcast; perfect for the ceremony in Reeth Community Orchard. As our guests arrived, the brass band played and after their introductory piece, Deep Harmony, we were both in tears. That kind of set the tone for the rest of the morning although Amanda held it together far more than I. It was delightful to let the emotion of the day take us up and let the joy flow. And the tears!

Our friends Liz and Karen did readings for us, the band played some more and we read our vows to one another. We also planted two climbing roses in the garden as a memory to our day. Then the champagne flowed, we chatted and we laughed and just had fun. I forgot to give Amanda her eternity ring during the vows bit – neither had written it down on our running order and if it ain’t written down, it don’t get done! Still, most people were still there, so they got to witness me finally putting it on her finger. The ring was custom made in Rochechouart, our new home in France and is a band of white gold with diamonds and amethyst set into it. Simple, elegant and beautiful.

From the orchard, we went up to Overton House Café where Jill and Adrian surpassed themselves to produce the most wonderful lunch in French style. Thanks guys, it was perfect.

Two working groups went from the café; one to clear up the mess in the orchard, the other to decorate the hall for the ceilidh. Then back to the Burgoyne for a rest before hitting the dancing.

The evening was great although not so many people turned up as expected, so the fish and chip supper turned out quite expensive. It was however a roaring success and great fun. The band were in fine form, Hillary getting everyone up and calling some great dances. The whole place rang with laughter. Truly brilliant.

Last thing at night, we let two Chinese lanterns into the air from Reeth Green. They are remarkably beautiful to watch ascending skyward. A perfect end to a perfect day.

Sunday. Amanda’s 50th Birthday. She was centre stage and enjoying every second of it – deservedly so. The Burgoyne crowd enjoyed a large leisurely breakfast and morning; some walking off the night before, some just lounging. Emma and MM came up in the late morning and sat with us until we went through for lunch. Derek and his team did us proud yet again on the food and service and Amanda was in fine form looking fabby. She did have fifty candles on her cake and needed the help of little Katie and Oliver to blow them all out, with some effort!

The afternoon was spent in the sun in the garden overlooking Reeth green. Our friends gradually drifted away, heading home and by teatime there were just eight left; my family. We scooted off to the pub for yet more food (albeit small portions) and a beer.

It was a brilliant, brilliant weekend and thanks to all our friends and family who travelled far and wide to be with us, especially cousin Mark and Carlos who came all the way from Barcelona. Seeing you all there was a true joy to both of us and we will treasure the memories always.

By the way, thanks to all of you who donated to the Swaledale mountain rescue team in lieu of gifts - £180 is going their way. If anyone forgot or would like to donate anything, let me know. They do stirling work, all voluntary and save lives every year.

Our new home in France.

The news you’ve been waiting for! It became apparent that whilst life on the road was fun and we had thought to have a few years out, there was something missing. A base perhaps or the need for a project. Whatever, we started looking in the Limousin when we returned there in the spring. Rather Amanda did; I found myself back in the UK trying to find out why my digestive system wasn’t working properly. She found some interesting possibilities and a whole load of expensive ‘refresher’ opportunities. Hmm. Interesting term that. Yes, as always, the estate agents were keen to encourage us numpty brits to part with their cash on seriously expensive money pits. You really do have to watch what you are doing out there.

Anyhow, just days before leaving on our grand holiday, we saw a house and barn near Rochechouart, being sold by our favourite agent John. The house was three beds and done, the barn big and sound and the garden adequate. Unfortunately, the house was attached to two other cottages in need of renovation and a barn, which the vendors intended to keep. Not interested. It was too close and made the house feel hemmed in. Then John said they might actually want to sell the lot. OK now interested! That would give us two Gites for income and plenty of space for studios for our hobbies and craft. He said he get us a price.

He did. Two hours before setting off to the airport. We couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity, made an offer. It was accepted half an hour before boarding the plane, on condition we gave them a deposit straight away. No bank details, no nothing with us, I managed to make some calls from London and scrape together enough to satisfy and the funds were transferred via a currency dealer whilst we were in Mauritius.

On our return a month later, we all met in the notaire’s office and signed the Compromis de Vente, a document that sets out what’s being bought and once the cooling off period has passed, is a binding contact. We sign the final ‘acte’ before 31st August and then the place will be ours.

So what have we bought? In the hamlet of La Besse (or Labesse), just off the D10 ten minutes for Rochechouart, we have bought a fully renovated three bed house, with big windows, oak floors, beams and a wood burner together with two cottages (gites) to renovate and two very large barns, together with about half-an-acre of land. The house gites and one barn are together in a long terrace, whilst the second barn and the land are across the road. There is also a decent bread oven at the bottom of the garden. It ticks all the right boxes.

The two cottages are fairly compact but so full of character. They’ll be about 250 years old with huge beams running through them. One has floors, the other needs starting from scratch. I hope to get both done over the winter, but we’ll see. Certainly one will be! The end barn started out life as a house and could be 400 years old. Anyway, check out the photos.

More later, I need to get this posted.

Zaragoza

We had a really good, easy drive to Zaragoza. With a lunch break it took us eight hours, travelling through the heart of Spain. As we got closer to the Pyrenees, the landscape became less arid and more verdant with the famous plians of Spain stretching as far as the eye could see, a patchwork of earthy colours. It also got colder and we were pretty much on the snow line, with snow-dusted hills and mountains all around us. TomTom the satnav directed us perfectly to the site, although the pace of development in this suburb of Zaragoza is so fast the mapping is well out of date with new roads everywhere.

The municipal camping at Zaragoza is brand new, not even a year old. When it matures it will be a nice place with excellent facilities. It borders a canal which was ideal for Pooch walking. Unfortunately, it was designed by the municipal architects, none of whom were aware of what a tent looks like, let alone a caravan, or dare I say it, a motorhome. They designed and built a very impressive reception building with a narrow driveway to approach it, then a neat 90deg turn into the camping. Even moderately sized units would struggle to get in, let alone anything our size. Fortunately Alberto, the amazingly helpful chap on reception, let us in through the service gate. It was through this gate we had to reverse out of to leave two days later; no room to swing round going forwards! Our pitch is the biggest I’ve ever seen. We could have got four Rvs on easily and I reversed on to pitch with the MINI on the trailer! It was that big.

Tired, we ate, played Scrabble and went to bed early. Following morning I decided I’d like a look at Zaragoza. I had seen the website and there appeared to be plenty of history and interesting architecture to look at. The city map I picked up in reception had lots of landmarks on it, so my curiosity was piqued. We took the no 41 bus into town which dropped us at landmark #1, La Puerta Carmen. This was the gateway to the ancient city; it’s interesting to think that the city has grown so big it took half an hour to get from the outskirts on the bus. And as the bus driver thought he was Fernando Alonso, that’s quite a long way!

Next was the old medical university which has statues of the four founding fathers sat outside the front doors. Other than that it was a fairly plain brick building. From here we wandered down the Paseo de la Independencia, Zaragoza’s main drag, sheltering from the cutting breeze. It was a tad chill, especially after La Manga. We stopped at a café bar for a cup of tea. The place was buzzing. It was a long, slim café, with a long slim bar running halfway down the right hand wall. On the bar were display cabinets with delicious looking pastires and other goodies, many featuring chocolate. There was a range of teas and coffees to be had and the wall behind the bar had two shelves crammed with every alcoholic beverage known to man! In front of the bar were tables and chairs and at the bar were stools. Now, something we learnt whilst in Spain is this. If you want an idea of how good a bar is, just look at the floor under the stools. If it’s covered in litter, then the bar must be popular, therefore it must be good. It’s the done thing to throw your sugar wrappers, fag ends and any other bits of detritus from your sojourn at the bar on to the floor. And the floor only gets swept at night, after closing. The rest of the place can, and most invariably will be, spotless as was this café was. Something about this practice makes me smile – it seems so right somehow!

Warmed through, we went to a tourist info office, got what we needed there and headed off into the old town to see the sights. First off, the Roman amphitheatre. It was closed, so no close looks but it could clearly be seen from the street. It is covered by an impressive glass roof. There’s about half of it left and it looks as though it was well interpreted. From there we headed for the Basillica del Pilar. This is a huge building, about the size of York minster. Inside there is a main altar with an impressive carved stone altar piece and a smaller chapel behind it where there was a service being held. Marble and gold leaf was very much in evidence. The ceilings were created by Goya and there’s a museum holding some of the original sketches. The archiructure is impressive as are all the frills and furbelloes, but despite the service taking place, the place is now so much of an attraction I didn’t feel too much of a sense of spiritualism. Or maybe I was just feeling that side out. We visited a tiny, run down chapel which had a great feel to it, so maybe not.

The square outside the Basillica has been reworked and is a vast open space with the La Seo church and tower at one end and a very fine water feature at the other. From this, we walked towards the Palacio de la Aljeferia, the one and only Moorish palace in this part of Northern Spain. It was closing for lunch by the time we got there, so we went in search of some ourselves. We chose a restaurant which looked OK and had a nice sounding, if a little more expensive, menu. What a bloody disaster. The food was awful and we didn’t have the language to complain, although the fact we didn’t eat much of it spoke volumes. They still charged us for it even though I said it had been bad. Maybe I should have just refused?

We wandered back to the palace but it was still closed, so we had a walk around the perimeter. It is surrounded by a big, deep moat and the front is typically Moorish in design. The rear was obviously remodelled at some time and two thirds of the whole building appears to be offices. I took some photos ( not easy to do with all the cars and trucks parked outside) and then we decided to head back for the bus.
So far, I’ve painted a fairly neutral picture of Zaragoza but I was really disappointed with the place. It has no sense of history. There are these wonderful landmark buildings but for the most part the rest of the city is new and redeveloped and there seems to be no tangible link between old and new, no historical time line. The only narrow backstreets we came across had been modernised and also had a menacing feel to them. It felt as though it was a new city with some old buildings put in it for effect. It was a shame really as for me, it promised much and delivered little. I’m glad I went to satisfy my curiosity, but it wasn’t worth it.

Floozie2 the TV star

We got away from La Manga this morning having fixed the errant valve that was stopping the air suspension from rising. Floozie2 got a wash, Pixie the MINI was put on her trailer and washed, then had her cover put on and we went to bed for an early night. The alarm went at 7am on Amanda's digital alarm clock, yet the rest of the clocks said 6. Huh? So we sat in bed with a cup of tea thinking we were an hour early and the clock had had a dicky fit, then got organised and were off by 7-30. Or so we thought. In fact Amanda's clock was right and had automatically adjusted itself for daylight saving. It was in fact 8-30!! Non the less, it was a good early start for our eight hour plus journey today.

We set off in rain, which gave way to cloud, then bright patches until by the time we got to Zaragoza, it was lovely and sunny. It was a really good run and the the closer we get to the Pyrenees, the more attractive the landscape becomes. Wide open, patchwork plains of green and burnt umber bordered by hills and mountains still dusted with the last of this winter's snow. Quite dramatic at times.

We arrived at Zaragoza by 4.30pm and found the campsite easily. It's brand spanking new and showed great promise on its internet website. And it lives up to it....apart from one wee flaw. The camping is spacious, well laid out with lovely big pitches and wide access roads. But for some reason they designed the place with the most awkward and narrow entrance that even some fair sized caravan units would struggle to get in. There's also an overhanging roof on the reception which is aleady bearing the scars of missed attempts at getting in. However, the nice lad on reception said we could go in through another set of service gates. When we got to them, he was there waiting, along with a roving news reporting team for TV in Barcelona - or so they told us. Amanda reckons they were 'kids' doing a college project but they looked too old for that. Or has Amanda now got to the age where anyone under thirty is a 'kid'? I guess I shall have to ask when I pay up tomorrow. Anyway, they filmed us coming on to site, driving through, reversing on to pitch with the trailer on (not the best bit of reversing I've done - typical!) and then a poke around inside. They had fun, bone fide or not.

So as the sun goes down, we're both writing away and enjoying the peace and quiet of the site. Depending on how we feel tomorrow, we shall either get on our way or take a stroll into Zaragoza for the day. Apparently it has a lot of history and is quite pretty, so maybe something we shouldn't miss.

Another Floozie2 drama!

Aha! Yet again the best laid plans of mice and men have been sent awry. We were due to set off for France yesterday (Friday) morning, so on the Thursday afternoon we got all packed up and then started to move Floozie2 to another pitch near the exit ready for an early get-away the following day. It soon became apparent that the air suspension wouldn’t rise. It wasn’t long before there was a group gathered around trying to work out what was happening. We tried one or two solutions, only they weren’t. A call to Winnebago in the UK suggested taking it for a run; that sometimes released whatever valve was stuck. Only it didn’t and it was an eventful trip up and down the site with no air in the bags. It was something like Skippy on a boneshaker. So on Thursday evening we plonked her on a pitch, I had a shower and we went around to Mick and Ann’s for a drink and a chat about the next step. As it happens, it was from this delightful couple that we bought Rowleth End; they went on the road after they sold up the same way we did. Mick is a champion fixer with RVs and an amazing fount of knowledge, so he was the first person I went to.
Friday morning, early ( well early-ish) we were under the motorhome trying to work things out. We kept calling Dudleys in the UK and Chris was able to give me information on where to look. We tried everything; still nothing. Then another great chap called Godfrey suggested we called Freightliner (the chassis manufacturer) on Skype. So we did via Godfrey’s computer. I spoke to a chap called Marcus who just couldn’t have been more helpful and suggested some things. We also gleaned a scematic drawing from him, which was sent by email ten minutes later. Now we know what we’re dealing with it makes it so much easier to work out what’s wrong and it would appear to be a solenoid valve which is faulty and not giving the signal to the suspension to rise. So today we’ll have a much closer look at this valve and try and sort it out. With any luck we might be able to free it off and we’ll be away on Sunday. If not we’ll be here for, well who knows how long whilst a spare is sent out. Unless of course we fix it. With the amount of knowledge and talent that abounds on this site, I’m sure we will!