Robin Willis

Our last two days in France were just as busy, with a visit to St Malo, just beyond Mont St Michel, on the Wednesday, and a morning on the beach on the way back to the ferry on Thursday.

We took the scenic coastal route to St Malo, and couldn’t resist stopping to pick up some massive bunches of the ubiquitous garlic from a seller amusingly named Elaine Bastard. It can’t be an easy living, selling garlic and possibly only garlic, but if that were me, I would appreciate its unique advantages: the time it gives for reading, the low-impact lifestyle of a small car and a small travel to work (and a small dog), and the endless view over the salty sand flats of the bay just yards away. And free garlic.

Twenty minutes further down the road we happened upon a small land-yachting outfit (”char-à-voile”), and as the wind was picking up, we thought – rather trepidly – we’d give it a go. Jamie and I, being the boldest, would bravely pilot a single-seater each, while Barlie would be in Mum’s care in the safety of a stable two-seater.

We got kitted up, paid the man, and set off in our chariots. The wind had seemed strong… but minutes later we were becalmed and going nowhere! So much for the adrenaline and nerves! The operators then changed the course to make better use of the wind’s (new) direction, and things started moving again. Soon Mum and Barlie were each in their own single-seaters, and we were all whizzing round the course at lightning speed, all caution to the wind and loving every minute!

About an hour after we were supposed to have finished, we finally gave up our gusty chariots, and went for a snack meal at a roadside cafe. The proprietress was less than pleased with our decision to share three dishes between the four of us, and loudly declared her annoyance to anyone that would listen. Really it’s mandatory as an English-speaker to schedule in one or two good ear-bashings, by way of allowing the noble French tradition of excellent customer service to continue.

Eventually we arrived in St Malo, as the afternoon was coming to a close. We walked through the town, had a delicious patisserie and a peek in the awe-inspiring cathedral, then sauntered around the ancient medieval city walls, and were treated to brilliant dappled sunshine through the Norman clouds.

The next morning we packed up camp, and headed to the nearby seaside resort town of Jullouville, where Mum had spent a week on holiday with her school, about twenty years ago. Much had changed, but the feel of a good seaside town always stays the same. Again we bought some patisseries, impressively neatly and rapidly (and frankly unnecessarily) wrapped in gift-paper.

The doughy-looking thing on the far right (picture below) (my brother on the right in the picture above is far from doughy) is a Far Breton, with no direct comparison in any confections available in Britain. It’s rather like a cross between a Yorkshire pudding and a crème caramel. With prunes at the bottom. It sounds odd, but was divine!

After an hour or so playing on the beach, collecting shells, finding hermit crabs, paddling in the warm water, and digging up sand-worms, we went for a surprisingly tasty and excellent value lunch, and narrowly avoided a massive downpour.

On the way back to the car we ducked into a tiny photography exhibition, got talking to the photographer – a lovely chap – and bought some of his prints. Three-for-two; bargain! We couldn’t delay the inevitable two-hour journey back to the ferry any longer, so set off and stopped only for supplies at a supermarket: a picnic for supper on the boat.

Camembert, St Agur, Apericubes, tomatoes, dried sausage, more crusty baguettes, more Normandy butter, and more red wine. Bliss.

Sunset over the water as we came back into Portsmouth.

This is our haul! Leftover food, the photographs, gifts for friends and family in America (lacking the privilege of such proximity to France), and of course garlic.

A really memorable – and filled wall-to-wall – four days. All factors played out very well: four-up in one capacious car for minimum travel cost in reasonable comfort; camping for fun and minimal accommodation cost; not too many hours spent on the road, while still being far enough away to feel that we really were away. We’ll do it all again… one day!

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After getting back from the Lakes we had a weekend at my parents’, not doing an awful lot, but still somehow not having enough time to see everyone we wanted to. A few people joined us for the afternoon in the pub and a (rather lively) Vietnamese meal… of which there are luckily few pictures. There was also an idyllic, picture-perfect, couldn’t-have-wished-for-better (albeit hungover) Sunday lunch in the garden under the apple tree.

Then another crack-of-sparrowfart departure on the Monday morning, this time to Portsmouth to get the ferry to Cherbourg. No ordinary slow ferry, though, this one hurtled across the Channel at a blistering 40 knots and got us there in only three and a half hours!

So by lunchtime, we had driven for an hour and a half, and reached the peaceful pretty town of Bayeux.

A well-deserved beer was in order! This went nicely with assorted salads and an ‘American’ sandwich (with chips thrown in the middle, not a technique I’ve seen often since living in the US).

Then after a look round the excellent Bayeux Tapestry, nearly a millenium old (no pictures allowed; suffice to say it’s impressive and well worth a visit), we motored out to the coast to visit the American Military Cemetery about 10km north-west of Bayeux.

Moving.

Miraculously we then crammed in yet one more stop, at Arromanches to the site of the Mulberry harbour built in the twelve days following the D-Day landings in June 1944. There’s a museum there with scale models of the harbour, details of how it was built, and a period film showcasing the efforts of our jolly lads in the war effort. It’s truly astonishing how much was achieved in such short timescales.

The remaining caissons are visible in Satellite view:

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The ones on the beach are the spares that never got used:

Finally we made our way across to the west side of the base of the Cotentin peninsula (the finger with Cherbourg at the top), to our campsite. A LONG day! The campsite was comfortable and well-equipped: highly recommended. Perfectly situated for exploring the area too, near the not-too-touristy town of Granville.

This is breakfast the next morning, with baguettes and croissants freshly baked on site, still warm (I can still taste them now, there’s nothing that compares – especially with chunks of creamy-white Normandy butter and strawberry jam):

The day’s visit was to Mont St Michel, about 45 mins’ drive from the campsite. This used to be completely cut-off at high tide, and must have accordingly lost some of its charm when the permanent causeway was built at the end of the 19th century, though visitors are warned that the car park may still flood at certain high tides!

A single crowded narrow street curves round the south side of the island, up to the steep entrance stairs of the Abbey perched on the top.

All the occupants of those vehicles are on this rock as well?!

It’s impressive up close. Needless to say it’s had a long and interesting history, and was a prison for a large part of the nineteenth century.

Up next, two more days in France, and then there’s only a month of stuff back in the US to catch up on!

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The rest of the Lakes trip was fairly action-packed:

A visit to GoApe, where you get to swing around in the trees (safely harnessed at all times), 50ft off the forest floor, clambering over bridges from tree to tree, whizzing down zip lines and making monkey noises.

Plenty more eating at the massive table in the house, with up to nineteen of us seated around it! More drinking too, and more optional monkey noises.

More ambling around the immediate countryside; this is the view from down near the lake, past the village nestling at the foot of the hills, up to the Old Man of Coniston behind:

We took a trip on a steam launch across the lake, to the house where the acclaimed writer and workers’ rights activist John Ruskin lived and worked. His story is interesting and inspiring, but not without its touch of sadness. He had a vast range of interests and knowledge, spanning from art to science and geology to ornithology.

More eating! This is the locally made Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding. …Words can’t describe how good this stuff is. Decadent doesn’t even begin to cover it, especially if it’s got a good dollop of clotted cream on it. We ended up bringing some back in our hand luggage, causing a few raised eyebrows and re-scans at the airport security!

The last day we were there we went sailing. Mum’s breezy proclamations of “There’s not much wind today, is it really worth going sailing?” were not exactly accurate; there was a stiff wind (see the flag blown horizontal) with sudden gusts and rain on the way.

We ventured out nonetheless, in three Wayfarers between seven of us; getting soaked by spray and rain, and blown to bits by the wind. One boat even managed to break their centreboard, leaving them effectively completely stranded (unable to go anywhere but downwind fast).

All too soon it was time to leave the Lakes. On the way out we stopped at Skelwith Bridge to admire the river in full raging flood, swollen from the heavy rain:

We’d had a blast that week! Next… our adventures in France.

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After day to adjust and unwind a bit, in Woking (including our first meeting with the hilarious Snoop tha Dogg at Neil and Diane’s), we set off for the Lakes early on Friday morning. On Saturday we relaxed, explored the village of Coniston, and rambled up a nearby hill to find the waterfalls. It rained steadily, so the rivers were in full flow.

Then on Sunday we ventured up the largest of the nearby hills, the Old Man of Coniston. This overlooks the town and the lake, and at 800m high is not the tallest in the Lakes, and certainly not in the UK, but is still a good afternoon’s jaunt, and takes a little effort to complete in good time.

The best bit is that the walk can start right outside the door of the house – no need to get in the car! (The consequent lack of global warming explains the miserable weather we had most of the week.) All ready to go:

Here’s our route, as best I can show it with scintillating Paint skills. The house is point 1.

Rolling meadows on the way up the road, to the start of the footpath (2):

More meadows and a drystone wall. These walls wind their way around most of the Lake District, and a lot of rural Britain, often firmly implanted on the most inhospitable of gradients, and battered by wind and rain, yet standing firm for centuries. Though the resources are often readily available in the environment, the labour cost nowadays works out as about £250 per metre, or $350 per yard.

I suspect there are more sheep in the Lake District than there are people. The land is neither flat nor lush enough for cattle grazing, but sheep are perfectly comfortable.

Things start to get steeper! This is the waste pile from an old slate mine we are approaching (3).

Our best guess was that it was last used in the early part of the twentieth century. There was a large saw and mill bed, together with its enormous motor frame, shattered and torn apart. That must have made quite a bang!

An old barn.

The tunnels disappear into the hillside. Some are connected all the way through, and blow out freezing damp air, cooled by the land mass of the hill. Refreshing on a hot day!

This is where they were taking the slabs of slate from; we could see the bore holes where explosive charges were inserted. They must have been after the larger pieces, for counter-tops, flooring flagstones or headstones, judging by the size of the lumps they had left behind, and the size of the saw!

More slate scree; luckily we’re not climbing up this way.

The view starts to get impressive (4), and the climb steeper still, though at this point we have departed from the main route in order to take a short-cut and catch up with the others.

Jenny bringing up the rear!

As we approach the summit, the tarn recedes below us and starts to look small.

At the summit! (5). There’s no triumphant group shot of us gathered at the top, as it was too windy to speak! Huddled in the meagre shelter of the cairn, we scarfed our lunches, felt very cold very soon, and moved off down the other side.

Battling into the wind on the west side of the summit (6). That rock face looks like a challenging climb!

Jamie is cold and huddled up in her cagoul! (Mac-in-a-sack; we purchased one each the day before, from a shop in Coniston. A valuable acquisition indeed, given the amount it rained over the week! The tag was ripped on the one I was considering; the shop owner’s husband suggested she take £5 off the £20 RRP… though she didn’t know I had heard him say that. “You can have it for £18 if you like!”)

The tarn looks small in the picture, but was deceptively large – it took a good ten minutes to walk along it. As with so many walks, the descent took so much longer than the ascent, especially as we were taking the long way round (7) back to the car park at the top of the road (2).

Soon we were back at the house, warming up with hot showers and mugs of tea. A good day’s expedition!

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Not the first journey back to the UK, and probably not the last, but there won’t be many like this one was! We flew with Delta, via Minneapolis, on a ‘buddy pass’: a colleague of mine has a nephew working at Delta, and the buddy pass allows friends and family to get heavily discounted tickets… with one caveat: they are standby tickets, so you only fly when there is space on the plane. This *normally* works out OK, I was told…

All went smoothly from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, after a ridiculously early start (the first of five 4am starts over the course of the 18-day trip), and a four-hour stop-over at Minneapolis gave us the chance to explore the Mall Of America, The Largest Mall In America (And Nearly The Largest Mall In The World).

There are no less than four theme parks, with massive rides and hordes of screaming schoolpeople.

…and luckily a good restaurant or two too. Steak for me thanks!

As we were waiting at the gate in Minneapolis that evening, it started to look unlikely that there would be space for us on the flight to London. We were preparing backup plans – Jamie’s second cousins live within an hour of the airport, so we were going to have a place to stay for the night – and contemplating the raft of uncertainties that would unfold. Would there be a flight we could get on in the morning? Would there even be space on the evening flight the next day? How could we spend more time at the Mall Of America without bankrupting ourselves? Would we be able to get to the family holiday in the Lakes in time, and be able to get the best bedroom in the house?

It was frankly upsetting. Even having steeled ourselves to the risks of flying standby in peak season, this started to seem rather unpalatable. Luckily enough, some other party didn’t show up, so there was plenty of space on the plane. In First Class, too! At the drop of a hat, our fortunes had changed, and we were on our way to Heathrow, on schedule and in luxury.

Coming up: more good stuff to eat! And it’s written down too!

Mmm, tasty starters: a salmon gravadlax, and a Thai chicken and coconut soup. (Check it out: real metal cutlery. Now that’s trust.)

Can’t remember the main course, but there was cheese for afters:

Sleepy-time! At last. The seats recline with fully adjustable back-rest and foot-rest, and even an adjustable lumbar support: in and out as well as up and down!

And the seats go ALL THE WAY BACK!

A few hours’ kip, then in a flash it’s breakfast time.

Then we’re back on home turf, and so naturally it’s curry time! (Thursday evening by this point.) A precedent has been set; this will be a holiday of eating. We gathered some family and friends, and headed to Vojons in St Johns, about one minute’s walk from my parents’ house.

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