We picked a fantastic day to visit Caen, the rain stopped all day and for most of the time it was blue skies and sunny.  What more could one ask for…?

Although most of the city was bombed in the 2nd world war, there are still, although slightly restored of course, the 2 abbeys of Willam the Conquerer and the fortified Chateaux.

The weather was so good that we ate our lunch at a restaurant close to the Chateaux outside in the sun after a wonder around the city.

Whilst we were up in Caen we also visited a could of places which had some motorhome accessories.  Finally we are fully equipped as we now have a BBQ and a table for outside; bring on the dry and slightly warmer weather!!!

As the weather has been raining alot over the last couple of weeks, with sunny spells, the grass and better said ‘weeds’ have gone on the rampage.  Due to this dry day, we took the opportunity to cut the grass and the edges in the evening when we got home from Caen as we knew that Thursday and Friday were going to return to be showery.  It’s not perfect, but better than before 🙂

Andy Ewings of the Lansdown tennis and squash club mentioned a challenged to performing a plank for 5 minutes, though building up the time little by little to achieve the final time.  Gail and I both reached the 5 minute goal yesterday – yeah hey 🙂

For those of you that don’t know what a plank is, exercisewise I’m talking about, then look at the below youtube link:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwo1qGnyIUI

Time to cut the grass again, and Gail helps cutting all the edges with the new toy 🙂

This is the location of our “gym” outside of the house in France 🙂

It’s incredible to think that we have been living here in France for almost a 1 1/2 weeks now, it is amazing at how time flies by sometimes…

We’ve managed to survive the 1st week of French classes ( Keith has about 2 hours and Gail has 1 hour 4 times a week), though we seem to be getting quite alot of homework; still when you want to learn and your paying for it you tend to be a bit more focused!!!

It’s not been all work and no play.  We’ve managed to join the local tennis club in the town, which has 6 indoor (see the photo below) and 6 outdoor courts.

Gail has started to practise her French with the neighbours.  Once the weather improves a little more, and once Keith has cleaned up the BBQ, I’m sure we’ll soon be eating out on the terrace with the neighbours.  The wine and French conversation I’m sure will be flowing; it’ll take Keith quite a bit of the former to help with the later 🙂

Before we left Lancing we put Mika on a public weighbridge, just to see where we were; not that we want to give her a complex :).  We were fairly well within the Gross weight limit, but were very surprised to see us being close to the rear axle limit.   Some redistribution of kit is required, though we’re going to look into uprating what the rear axles can take (change of tires and suspension) without altering the overall gross weight.  Some food for thought over the next couple of weeks or so…

With an fairly early boat from Portsmouth at 08:15, we didn’t want to be late, but with the very rigid rules of the camp site the gates weren’t opened until 7am.  This turned out not to be a problem as the traffic was OK.

As you may  or may not know we currently have a car and motorhome as we’ll be based at Gail’s parents place in France for 6 months, see the links below to get an idea:-

http://www.normandie-tourisme.fr/articles/bagnoles-de-l-orne-391-2.html

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/france/FR9761.htm

Keith drove the motorhome and Gail the car on this leg of the journey, though Keith was joined by “Ted” in the cab.  For those of you that don’t know, Ted was given to Gail when she was 12 before her and her family travelled around the America’s in a motorhome.  This time Ted wanted to check out what Europe has to offer…

Unsurprisingly the motorhome was pulled over for an inspection on the UK side before boarding the boat.  It was a fairly routine check, though with a Teddy bear sitting in the passenger seat it could easily have gone another way.

A steady journey of about 2 hours saw us arrive in a drizzly Bagnoles de L’Orne.  The house is as lovely as we remembered it, though getting the motorhome onto the driveway was a bit of a tight squeeze.

Although we’ll be based here for 6 months we’ll be travelling for a few weeks here and there in France when the house is rented out and for part of the time when Gail’s parents come over to give them a bit of space in their own home 🙂

The blog might be on the quiet side over the next couple of months, whilst we study French, do a bit of decorating and play tennis.  Keith’s school teachers won’t believe that he is keenish to learn another language; maybe it’ll be a case of Jack of all trades but master of none… 🙂

We had a slight concern when Keith’s phone  didn’t roam and Gail’s received a text indicating that our calls etc would be charged.  However, a quick call to EE confirmed that this was just a standard message.  We’ll see check online and see when the first bill comes through; making and receiving calls in most of Europe should be included in our package…

As we had booked our sailing from Portsmouth for the early hours of Thursday morning, we wanted to be closer the night before…

This was a well run and really smart site (£27.50/night as we were non club members).  We met and interesting couple that are in the process of walking around the whole cost of the UK, but have just converted from a caravan to a brand new VW camper; our van is no longer the new kid on the block.  We definitely need to do the Welsh coastal path when we return 🙂

We had an afternoon trip to Chichester on the train.  It’s got a pretty centre with the cathedral and an old city wall which is about 1.5 miles around.

We’re certainly getting into the swing of living in the motorhome, just ready for when we’re going to lay it up for a while…

Next stop France, oh la la 🙂

After speading a few days seeing both sets of parents, staying in the motorhome of course though being well fed :), we arrived at Lancing in West Sussex (£17.50/night plus electric on a £1 coin meter).

Although we had a hard standing pitch, as it had rained the night before there was definitely some sitting water.  With a bit of slipping and sliding of the front wheels we managed to reverse straight onto the 2 concrete strip.

Keith managed to go to watch a Brighton football game with Lee Costin.  The Amex stadium is fantastic, though unfortunately this time it was Ipswich that took the honors 2-0.

We caught up with Lee and Miranda  both on Saturday night and Sunday lunchtime; we were lucky on the sunday as we had just gone inside to Shoreham airport for some tea/coffee and cake when the skies opened for a hail storm which briefly left the ground white!!!

It was great that Sparkie and Roger W dropped  in separately to see us and the van, and we even managed to get to watch the Real Madrid v Barca game 🙂

Next stop Chichester…

We chose this site so that we could pick up Gail’s dad from one of the Oxford hospitals.  However, it is a great location to explore the beautiful city of Oxford; I’m sure I’ve been here before briefly but didn’t remember anything about it!!!

The site has the main train line fairly close by, and also another Park and ride over the road, but this didn’t seem to interrupt the nights sleep.  The only downside for a motorhome is no positions for motorhome waste water.  Luckily the managers had a spare container that we could use to transport it to the central location; just to clarify I’m not talking about the toilet waste 🙂

We managed to get it a few High intensity short fitness sessions (Jeremy – we’re up to 2:40 on the plank as well :)); I’m sure the strange looks that we got are not going to be the last we get on our travels…

1st stop on the UK leg of getting used to the Motorhome.  It was  a very good, friendly and quiet site (approx £21/night). A great location about 2-2 1/2 miles from the centre of Bath; the park and ride was opposite, not that we used it 🙂

It was an easy 1st week as we had a very busy week organized catching up with loads of friends; and the odd game of squash 🙂  We only managed to eat dinner in the motorhome once…