Travelling home

Early start today, the sat nav doesn't seem to have Calais port on it and we are hoping to find a supermarket on the way as apparently we need bottled water back home too. Really not sure what time we will get back. I'm hoping we will call in for chips with my grandma, but my boy is keen to get home in time for an early night so he's not too tired for his birthday tomorrow.

Calais has lots of barbed wire in double fences, and getting through passport control and then onto the ferry was v slow.
We're nearly back on English soil now tho.
Now we're on the m25 carpark and next opportunity we will switch so I drive again.

I have never seen such a busy service station,  gridlocked to get on and off. Good job I'm so patient...

How can a 5 lane motorway still have us moving at 3mph if we're lucky?? I'm so glad I don't have to use this motorway often!

And back, nearly 10 hours since leaving Dover. Very tired.  Water to sort. Will blog again tomorrow :-)

Meanwhile the holiday isn't over yet. Here's a highlight, coupe advocat.

last day/last post

Our last day here, we have a lot planned so won't be back to the hotel, and Wifi, til late as it includes the last post at the menin gate. We all caught the sun yesterday, and in ensuring everyone else had plenty of sun cream on I overlooked myself and consequently didn't sleep well due to my burned arms. There's a lesson in that.

Smelling hops. The immediate area is very much focussed on hops so we went to the hop museum

bottled water

I find the use of bottled water in the UK environmentally scandalous when we have abundant drinkable water straight from the tap. We are incredibly lucky but like so many things, I think we often take it for granted.
Here where the advice is not to drink the water from the tap, its interesting how I'm trying to balance a constant reminder to everyone to drink plenty whilst also being mindful of every drop. I keep refilling a little bottle from the big ones we bought at a supermarche. On more than one occasion I have had to give my water to others as I'm more prepared than they are. Offering my water is something I clearly would do to anyone, can you think of anything more humane to do? But I'm squeamish about germ sharing and often wouldn't then have my bottle back unless I loved you very very much. This may stem from sharing a drink with one of my offspring when they were little and it came back to me with bits in it. So even though I love them more than anything, I might not even now take my bottle back after they have drunk from it.
Today I'm packing lots of little bottles into a day sack for our cycle ride. I was a little embarrassed at breakfast when chatting to a biologist i met yesterday. I said we were hiring bikes today and he asked which route we would be following. I said we would head to the nearest village, which is only some 4 km away. Enquiring as to their cycling plans for the day, they are doing a 47 km frontier route. We are a diverse party tho, one of us regularly cycles the guild wheel, whereas others haven't been on a bike in some time.
As always, its not a competition. We can all enjoy our time whatever it is we do :-)

We got through a lot of water.  Somehow my boy had lost or not brought any footwear other than flip flops which are not suitable for cycling so we had to go via a shoe shop. We did about 24 km, lovely flat countryside.

on the border

Thunderstorms overnight and the weather is a lot different today, no bad thing as none of us are sun worshippers. I could cheerfully spend the day sleeping I just haven't had enough kip these last couple of weeks. Hopefully a gentle day today? My girly is keen to have a crepe but I'm not sure if we will go into France today. We are right on the French/Belgian border, as you can possibly see in this pic.

This is the view from our window and you might make out the now deserted border crossing.

I often find holidays challenging.  I tend to be only happy when everyone is happy,  which can be impossible when there are several people with differing needs and desires, various expectations in terms of levels of activity etc. My girly wanted to eat waffles and crepe so she is happy.

Tomorrow we are taking a break from war and will hopefully hire bikes. For now it is reading beside the pool for me. I have brought with me a Charlotte Bingham novel given to me as a present several Christmases ago if I recall correctly. I deliberately didn't bring the book I really really want to read, cos I knew I would get sucked into the story and not want to socialize with people. That I will read when I get home and the kids go away. I will definitely have to do a few lengths again today if I am to begin to counter the impact of the chocolate etc I'm consuming....

Finally

It's how a holiday should be,  Everyone is doing something that makes them happy.  The kids are in the pool for the third time in 24 hours (it doesn't open in the mornings or else that number would be higher), my boyfriend is sampling the local beer,  and I am blogging about it all.
We have done lots already,  making the most of what could potentially be the best weather of the week.  30 degrees today so a bit hot for me really.

Arriving in France earlier than anticipated we had time before we could check in,  so we went to the beach at Dunkirk. Now considering how overactive my imagination can be,  I can be lacking at times. Consider any beautiful beach close to a densely populated area on a hot August day. It was of course heaving with bronzed bodies, music blaring,  stalls selling all kinds of stuff.  It was not the desolate beach in black and white that I had pictured,  funnily enough.

And so onto the hotel,  which apart from the disastrous lack of Wifi initially,  is great. There is an awesome sun terrace that last night had a lovely sunset and we have bought yummy items to consume there later. I suspect we will have a lot of bread and cheese meals this holiday but given the high standard of both I'm not complaining.

Good girl?

As my dad said when I texted him at 1.30 am to say we had finally arrived safely, today is a new day.
The two hour delay at the start I managed ok, but I was struggling to stay positive at the end when being a good girl didn't seem to pay off as we stayed in the correct lame going nowhere for hours whilst chancers flew past us. I have since lost my good girl status tho by going the wrong way down roads on the services to try and park up for the hotel and will need to repeat that again tomorrow.  Hopefully I will feel less grumpy when I'm out in the fresh air.

Allowing bazillions of extra minutes to get here has paid off! Operation stack no longer in force so we got here really early and they have put us on the ferry two hours before our scheduled one,  so that from like two hours extra holiday!  The sun is shining and I'm much less grumpy now :-)

..and now on French soil. First stop to see the beach at Dunkirk.

Seeing the whole of the moon

I have a friend whose spirit of adventure I greatly admire. She's encouraged me to have a joy filled and refreshing time in Belgium. That is my plan, and in order to do so am going to remind myself lots that I'm not responsible for anyone else's fun, only my own. I'm a big believer in that we create what we experience. This is not to deny the hideous things that can happen to folk that can floor us, but that for me attitude is everything. I'm well aware that with operation stack still in place and the motorway to Dover closed, the journey has the potential to be fraught (we don't do that bit til tomorrow tho), but I'm nonetheless excited and have worked out how to say "I spy with my little eye" in French.
Meanwhile my optimism is firmly in place - I know that my optimism is simultaneously appealing and irritating, but it is irrepressable. I know its a fine line. When things feel bleak, a situation may not be helped by someone cheerfully suggesting it will all be alright when that is Not How It Feels At All.
And yet.
My life experience this far leads me to know that even when it feels hopeless, it never stays like that forever. Something shifts and our creativity is released and we shuffle a bit and are then able to see things a bit differently. I may need to remind myself of this if I'm trapped for some time in a queue.
I think I model myself on the people to whom I feel immense gratitude, those who have resolutely stood by me when things have felt unbearably tough. You - and several of you will be reading this - have not called me silly for finding things overwhelmingly hard. You have stayed present, offered me practical and emotional support,  and consistently pointed out how far I have come and just how much there is to stay hopeful about. Thankyou.

Meanwhile, having watched big hero 6 last night, for the second time, I'm surprised I've not blogged on it before. As you know, I think kids films are the best, and wholeheartedly recommended this one:-)

... All going well so far. i've just hoovered so much gravel out of my car I must have improved my fuel consumption no end! I've then crammed tons of drinks and snack bars into every little space - one of the joys of my car is it has loads of little drawers built in :D And here's a fab quote for today and always:

No regrets just lessons
No worries just acceptance
No expectations just gratitude
Life is too short

Still not there yet, left 2 hours late cos of scout. Minibus breakdown.  Reasonable run til this last hour when we have only moved 0.3 miles. Might not have time to blog later or til on ferry tomorrow as need to sleep at some point!! It's currently after midnight and still a bit to go...