Where's Bertie? He's at the large Aire at Bergues, where we've stayed a couple of times before.
Weather: Mainly sunny during our day in Crawley, but mixed once we hit France, with rain on and off into the night.
After spending yesterday playing with grandchildren, it was after bedtime when we arrived outside the house of friends in Crawley. We therefore left them to battle their children into the land of sleep, and took ourselves off to bed too.
After a very rainy day yesterday, it was a relief to open the over-bed blind this morning to see sunshine. I thus leapt up, donned running gear and set off on what I had perceived from the OS 1:50k map would navigationally be a very straightforward off-road route which would take me through open countryside.
The reality was that over the first couple of miles I had to stop repeatedly to check the map, at one point got completely disorientated, and twice had to backtrack. Once the way did become idiot-proof, I didn't get the open views I had hoped for:
Having covered 4 miles on my outward leg, I thought that returning the same way would take me up to 8, but I hadn't taken the earlier deviations and backtracks into account. Ne'er mind. 7.7 miles was near enough when I had friends waiting for me.
A walk to and around a local park with friends + children featured after a late cooked breakfast...
...and the day flew by until it was time to head off to the Channel Tunnel.
We arrived at check-in just over 2 hours before our crossing and were offered the 1920 shuttle - an hour earlier than the one we had booked. In the event, once our departure was called, we made it through customs, border control and gas check so quickly that we made it onto the 1906 crossing. That fourteen minutes made all the difference. Had we been later we would have spent the night at Cite Europe, the large shopping centre right next to the Tunnel Terminal. As it was, we knew we could make it here, to the much nicer location of Bergues, by 2130 local time, and having been there before we knew the Aire to be huge and thus we would be guaranteed a space on a Sunday night out of season.
We arrived to find the Aire full! Eeek!That is to say, there wasn't a single space around the perimeter where everyone parks. There are, however, no marked bays and after a small amount of contemplaton we decided we could pop Bertie slap in the middle of the parking area without impeding anyone's exit, so that's what we did.
It was about an hour later (during a "why is it so busy?" conversation) that it suddenly occurred to me that there's a public holiday in Belgium in early June and I began to suspect that holiday may also apply in France. A quick Google confirmed that yes, we had unwittingly arrived in Europe during a holiday weekend. In fact, surveying the list of dates, it seems that in the last month and a half it would have been pretty difficult to avoid holiday weekends in France.
Weather: Mainly sunny during our day in Crawley, but mixed once we hit France, with rain on and off into the night.
After spending yesterday playing with grandchildren, it was after bedtime when we arrived outside the house of friends in Crawley. We therefore left them to battle their children into the land of sleep, and took ourselves off to bed too.
After a very rainy day yesterday, it was a relief to open the over-bed blind this morning to see sunshine. I thus leapt up, donned running gear and set off on what I had perceived from the OS 1:50k map would navigationally be a very straightforward off-road route which would take me through open countryside.
The reality was that over the first couple of miles I had to stop repeatedly to check the map, at one point got completely disorientated, and twice had to backtrack. Once the way did become idiot-proof, I didn't get the open views I had hoped for:
Having covered 4 miles on my outward leg, I thought that returning the same way would take me up to 8, but I hadn't taken the earlier deviations and backtracks into account. Ne'er mind. 7.7 miles was near enough when I had friends waiting for me.
A walk to and around a local park with friends + children featured after a late cooked breakfast...
...and the day flew by until it was time to head off to the Channel Tunnel.
We arrived at check-in just over 2 hours before our crossing and were offered the 1920 shuttle - an hour earlier than the one we had booked. In the event, once our departure was called, we made it through customs, border control and gas check so quickly that we made it onto the 1906 crossing. That fourteen minutes made all the difference. Had we been later we would have spent the night at Cite Europe, the large shopping centre right next to the Tunnel Terminal. As it was, we knew we could make it here, to the much nicer location of Bergues, by 2130 local time, and having been there before we knew the Aire to be huge and thus we would be guaranteed a space on a Sunday night out of season.
We arrived to find the Aire full! Eeek!That is to say, there wasn't a single space around the perimeter where everyone parks. There are, however, no marked bays and after a small amount of contemplaton we decided we could pop Bertie slap in the middle of the parking area without impeding anyone's exit, so that's what we did.
It was about an hour later (during a "why is it so busy?" conversation) that it suddenly occurred to me that there's a public holiday in Belgium in early June and I began to suspect that holiday may also apply in France. A quick Google confirmed that yes, we had unwittingly arrived in Europe during a holiday weekend. In fact, surveying the list of dates, it seems that in the last month and a half it would have been pretty difficult to avoid holiday weekends in France.
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