Manjastre revisited.

Here we are again, four weeks later, glamping (glamorous camping) in Manjastre. We like to think we are camping but in fact, we are not roughing it at all, as we have all the mod cons in our touring caravan (which never leaves the campsite as it is stored when we do not use it). We are here with Donna, Scott (who we collected from Nice Airport this morning) and Lucy. No chasing after an 18 month old toddler this time. In July this kept me very fit and ensured that I did not put weight on. Instead I must go for a run each morning and I know that Donna will make sure that I get out of bed early each morning for the run and swim!

The trip down was very good, mainly due to getting out of bed very early and on the road by 4.30 a.m. This meant we avoided the worst of the traffic jams. Our badge now works beautifully, although I still had it checked at one of the services. The cause of our malfunctioning badge was the special windscreen on our car. It blocked the signal transmission. Now the front passenger holds the badge out of the side window and, hey presto, the green light comes on and through we go, bypassing all the poor people queued up at the tolls.
We stopped at the mushroom park on the way down. The concrete mushroom park! A favourite stop for the children.
Walter, Donna and Lucy resting in the sunshine yesterday.
A glamorous pair!
A little game of badminton, in between setting up the camp site.

The only incident so far occurred when Donna went to the pool for the first time. She went through the regulation shower, walked tall and held her stomach in as she went past the handsome lifeguard and the men lying on the sun loungers. Then discovered once she got in the water that her bikini bottom was inside out! Embarrassing!

The Hop Farm

Yesterday, I took Lucy, Jackson and Isabel to the Hop Farm, in Paddock Wood, which is a 40 minute drive south from our house. The farm was once a large hop producing property, but is now a theme type park, with many activities and historical displays in and around the old buildings. A mix match of ideas, which I found disconcerting but the children loved the place.

A view of the old Oast houses, where the hops were once dried. Now they hold all the mismatch of ideas and displays that are part of The Hop Farm.
There was a very large waxwork display. Henry together with his six wives.

The spooky Michael Jackson waxwork display. Lucy and Jackson feeling scared!

Once the entry fee was paid, all the rides were free. They loved the merry-go-round.

Isabel jumping high on the trampoline.

Lucy's body disappeared in the Magic House!In the Magic House. I held the camera upside down but it all went wrong!

We finished off the day with a meal at Pizza Hut.

Vehicle mishaps continued

I am pleased to say that I have not reversed into anyone else! And I am relieved to know that I am not the only person who has had a few mishaps when reversing or parking cars!

However, I will not recount all the other stories I have heard, for fear that I may lose my friends and upset my family. Still I cannot resist telling you about Walter's mishaps with motorhomes. He has given permission!

Our first motorhome was a left hand drive Chausson. Not an easy vehicle to manoeuvre, I might add.

On our first trip out, Walter parked the van in a carpark in Canterbury, beside a small wooden post. But he forgot about the post when he drove off and turned the wheel on the van too sharply so that the post went into the front left door. The door was pushed in so much we could not open it! He followed this up 18 months later, when leaving a carpark, by turning the wheel again too sharply. This time the gate post gauged a strip out of the left side of the van. As we were leaving to go on holiday very soon afterwards, he had to put tape over the strip. It was very noticeable, and caused many a stare from people in other vehicles. Sympathetic stares, I hope!

When we came back from holidays, Walter had the van repaired and we bought a right hand drive van, which has been damaged but that was through an elderly lady in Germany reversing her car into the back of our van. The poor lady was very shaken, and the fact that the accident happened in front of two policemen, did not help her. I forgot to say that Walter reversed into a post, but this was due to me not giving clear directions when he was reversing the van.

The funniest mishap though was in NZ when we hired a long camper van. Walter turned the wheel (yet again) too sharply and the back of the van got caught on the cement pavement. It would not go forward or backward. Panic! A very elderly and overweight man had to help me lift the van up so that Walter could reverse the van back off the footpath. A bolt came off the water tank, which a helpful man in a garage fixed up with a piece of wire. The elderly overweight man did not have a heart attack thank goodness. A very deep scratch in the concrete marked the spot, forever!

I have a clean history with motor homes, so far!

Blackberrying

The elusive blackberries, which I know are regarded as weeds in NZ and Australia. But here they grow freely in hedgerows, in woods and on any vacant land around.

Now that I no longer have an allotment, I have no access to the beautiful blackberries that grew there. They surrounded two sides of my allotment and threatened to overtake it at times but the blackberries were delicious.

Then I remembered the numerous blackberries that grew in the reserve at Crockenhill when I lived there 19 years ago. So I thought a visit to the reserve would tell me if they still exist, and they do, in abundance.

I also found that much landscaping and development had also occurred and it is now a really delightful park.

With a lovely big playground, seating and paths galore.And ramps and small hills which are suited for the younger BMX bikers. Lucy, Jackson and Isabel enjoyed playing, while I picked the blackberries. I know they should have been helping, but the thought of kitting them out in blackberry proof clothes required too much organisation. However they did try a few blackberries, with mixed reactions.

The joy (or not) of a French motorway badge

After much effort, I have finally obtained a telepeage badge to use on the motorways in France. But the bloody thing does not work. Typical! My hopes of driving through the toll booths in the fast lanes, bypassing all the poor people queuing up, are dashed, for the time being that is, because I am determined not to give in.

For those people not familiar with the motorway system in France, they are excellent, with facilities and rest areas spaced at regular intervals along the road. The motorways are also owned and managed by different companies, and they extract huge amounts of money from you, for the pleasure of using their roads.

And now anyone can obtain a badge as it is no longer just for the privileged few. The badge gives you access to the fast lanes, the monitor registers as you pass through and debits the toll charge on your credit card. The badge can be used on all motorways, regardless of which company it was purchased from. Simple!

The first task in the process is to organise the purchase of the badge. The web pages describe how wonderful they are, and show pictures of cars passing through the telepeage booths easily and without delay. The company will even post a badge to a customer anywhere in the world so that they can use it on their next visit to France. Easy? No! Confusing and frustrating? Yes!

I wasted hours trying to organise a badge online. The first company would only accept French debit cards and the second company would not accept our post code. I tried to ring and was offered multiple choices (in French of course) which I could not understand so could not talk to anyone. Luckily I did not try the third company, Hans (in Holland) tried that one without success.

So I thought I would stop at the first peage and organise a badge in person. And luck was in, on the first motorway south of Nancy. There were representatives from Liber-t sitting in front of the service station organising badges. They even had English pamphlets. So within half an hour we left with a badge, financial arrangements sorted out and passwords organised for the web site. Fantastic! Aaron was so impressed he organised a badge for himself too. My visions of bypassing all the traffic jams at the tolls had become a reality. Dream on, they say!

Of course it was not meant to be, for us anyway. Aaron's worked beautifully of course. At the first toll the barrier would not move, so we reversed back, annoying the motorist behind us, took the badge off its mount and waved it around, behind the windscreen. It still did not work, so we had to reverse back again and then drive through another booth, behind a motorist. Of course we did not have a ticket. So when it came to the end of that toll road, we had no ticket and the badge still would not work. This time we had to reverse back and drive along the line of toll booths, in heavy traffic and accompanied by horns blaring and people shouting at us, to where there was a person in a booth. We had no ticket so got told off. We tried to explain, very badly, while impatient drivers tooted behind us. We nearly had an argument! We were very hot and bothered!

Meanwhile Aaron breezed through both toll booths and had to wait on the other side for us to catch up, which was the situation for the remainder of the trip down and the trip back.

We tried to explain our woes about the badge to the representative at one of the offices on the motorway south of Lyon. She was very sympathetic but could offer no solution because their company did not issue to the badge. The French shrug, accompanied the advice that we will have to go back to a Liber-t office. And all the Liber-t offices were closed when we returned home two weeks later. Fed up? Yes!

And then when I returned to Holland, my password would not work! Naturally Aaron's password worked. Brilliant for him!

So Aaron has very kindly lent us his badge for our next trip down to the south of France. I have promised that I will give him the money for the tolls that we have accrued on his credit card. This could be a cheap trip down there, if I forget to pay him! But I won't Aaron. Promise!

But just to finish off, it would appear that there may be nothing wrong with the badge after all but could, in fact, be the type of windscreen on the Citroen. I think it is blocking the signals. I found this out at the toll booths in Dartford. We have just put a new Dart badge on the Citroen, which allows us to use the tolls for the tunnel and bridge at a greatly reduced price (Dartford residents). The only way I could get the badge to work was to hold it up outside the window.

Of course the windscreen theory will be tested at the first peage in France. I will hold our badge out of the window, and Donna will hold Aaron's badge in readiness, in case the first badge does not work.

We will wait and see, and visit the first Liber-t office we find, regardless of whether the badge works or not. I just hope their English is better than my French. I have lots of questions to ask.

I want a badge. One that works!

Tax Returns - I feel faint thinking about them.

We have finally finished the British Tax Return for 2010/2011 and submitted it online. Joy o joy! A job put off, and now well done. A feeling of success and relief overwhelms both of us. And we are still talking to each other too.

It took an enormous amount of mental and written mathematical agility, two telephone calls to the taxation department, arguments about how spreadsheets should be organised and who should be checking the bank statements. And there was the constant double checking and rechecking of figures.

The task was made difficult as Australia has a different taxation year to the UK, and of course all the dollars had to be converted to English pounds. And accuracy was paramount! Who wants to give the tax department more money than necessary. But we did not want to underpay tax either!

But it is finished now. And we have a new resolution! No leaving everything until the next tax return. We are going to have weekly finance meetings from now on. I wonder how long we last, probably until the memories of the last return fade.

A visit to Singleton

I am out of sequence, as the blog on London is now before Houten. I cannot seem to work out how to put blogs in sequence order, if I write them out of sequence. A little technical hitch!

We went to Singleton by default, as we actually drove to Chichester to collect Donna's new annex and needed to stop somewhere for lunch. And we found a real gem of a village.

The cars that drove through the back street, and the tarmac on the road were the only reminders that we were, in fact in the 21st century.

A house with a cottage garden.
The street that leads to the church.
So idyllic. The scenery, that is!
Walter looking very happy after eating freshly cooked cottage pie and vegetables. The pub was full of elegantly dressed people and we thought we had gate crashed a wedding party. As there was no evidence of a bride and groom, and after listening in on some conversations we gathered the horse races were on, close to the village. We did not pick up any racing tips though!
We then drove home through country lanes, bathed in sunlight!