Life on the Run, A Bug Crawled in my Ear, French Baguettes, Camping Joys and Extreme Learning Curves

Hunting for treasure in French Brocantes ...and some chat about the perils of campsite amenities. And some excellent tee shirts, shorts and the sandals I have walked about 3,000 miles in.

Jun 15, 2025

Good Morning, bon jour and hello

And as I write I am very much hoping that the wifi booster doesn’t conk out and that I am punctual for our Sunday morning meeting!

We have now been away for 4 whole weeks. I can’t quite believe it has been this long tbh - and I am starting to feel like we are on the run and it’s high time we turned ourselves in!

We have almost completed our maiden voyage around France and today, the mileometer ticked quietly past 3,000 miles - somewhere in Normandy on a quiet French lane, flanked by golden corn fields and pretty granite cottages with brightly painted shutters. It looks and feels a lot like Cornwall. If I am honest it feels EXACTLY like Cornwall right now, because it’s clouded over and has just started to rain. FFS.

We have learnt a lot about camping (and ourselves) over the last 4 weeks and I promise I will write a proper post/s with our whole trip itinerary - where we stayed / the route we drove, what we would do again (& what we wouldn’t bother with) what we packed, how we stored stuff and alllllll that jazz - but today, sitting in the VW on a hilltop in Normandy in the rain, I thought I would impart with you, some stuff from ‘the journal’.

That sounds way more fancy than it is. I have an old notebook and in it I scrawl everywhere we have been and also random funny thoughts. It is most definitely not a gratitude journal - more a ‘loos excellent/ terrible’ kind of journal. It will not be worth unearthing from a dusty attic, 75 years from now and there will be absolutely zero chance of it becoming an historical best seller. TBH no one will be able to read my writing anyway, it mainly looks like a load of hieroglyphics and not in a way worth bothering to decipher.

CAMPERVAN LIFE. A short list of things I have learned

Parking the beast is a dark art that Gav has mastered, levelling it using the blocks is my job. I can just about slide the blocks in front of the wheels and leap about to alert him when he’s driven up them and is about to roll off the top bit. (Standing ovation for accuracy) Teamwork. HA . But no matter how level we think we are, something will ALWAYS roll off the work top. ALWAYS.
The kettle will always boil. Fact. Even at a 45 degree angle.
The neighbours will either be super friendly, sharing recommendations, discussing the ‘grey water situation’ and imparting pearls of camping wisdom, or you will feel like you are in the Matrix where no one even looks up to say hello, or worse - as literally just happened, the curtains on the van next door, swiftly closed. WHOOOSH. Not even politely waiting a moment. It’s
so bizarre, one or the other. Never can tell which way it will go but if it goes the matrix way, one of us will look at the other and the other will reply with an almost indistinguishable nod and slightly longer than usual, blink. An almost silent agreement between us. Solidarity.

This is Daniel and his wife. They were from Switzerland and no one spoke each other’s language - the more confused we looked, the LOUDER he repeated what he’d just said. He was SO nice. He never gave up and nor did we, in the end we resorted to Google translate and you will never guess what transpired. He has a form of blood cancer and is on the same kind of medication that Gav was on. They bonded and exchanged very large back slapping man hugs and when it was time for us to leave, they waved until we went out of sight.

Things get lost ALL the time. How, I have no idea, but generally, if something is lost, look under the dog. Keys? Wallet? Charger? Under the dog.
Equally, if something smells weird, blame it on the dog (or the copious amount of French cheese in the fridge)
Which brings me on to the loo sitch. URGH. French campsites, I have discovered (and the first time, to my utter horror, after which I was prepared FULLY each time) RARELY have loo roll. 90% of the time. No loo roll and no loo seat. Every campsite we arrive at, I brace myself for the fresh hell of the loos. MOST are clean - ok we are not touching anything or allowing any part of our trousers, pyjamas or shorts, to touch the floor - but they are not too bad generally. Without going in to too much detail (bc it is breakfast time) but even as an experienced hoverer of a public loo, after 4 weeks, it would be nice to sit down on an actual toilet seat. WHY are they absent? No idea. WHY is loo roll not standard? Literally no idea. Do people hover or just balance a cheek on the thin china edge? There is no warning either so it must be normal ?? As I said a couple of weeks ago, it is the steepest of learning curves. When I find loo roll AND a seat I swear I can hear angels singing. It’s not a subject I thought I would become expert on, but here we are. I also own thighs of steel now haha
Now let us discuss the camping, composting loo. This is a contraption that I have become VERY grateful for indeed. In all seriousness, Gav spent ages watching YouTube videos before investing in our very own camping composting loo. It is a bit gross when you think about it, but very necessary and it has been our saviour on many occasion. It lives in it’s own designated cupboard. I massively recommend you getting one if you are off on your travels in a ‘camping car’ as the French call it and I much prefer that name to ‘camper van’. I also recommend plastic gloves and antibacterial wipes.
Anyway, It seems to be the guard of the male camper, to deal with the loo emptying shenanigans. Many a morning when the site starts waking up, the men folk can be seen popping on a disposable glove and disappearing off, with the thing on wheels from under the caravan, or the thing with a handle, like ours and returning a lot lighter a few minutes later. I must confess that this is not my job either. I am imagining all the traumatised women with pockets full of emergency loo roll, refusing point blank to deal with the emergency loo. And that includes me. HA
Campsite showers, are as everyone will know, massively hit and miss. Some are so good it’s worth staying a whole week based purely on how good the showers are. Others are SO horrific… well in one site I refused a shower all together fearing - not to be overly dramatic, but fearing legionnaires disease or an untimely demise due to some other ghastly waterborne disease.
Some sites give you a fancy wristband to offer up and the shower starts when they are paired. It is another thing to remember to take with you and it definitely does not guarantee a decent experience. Others give you exactly 3 seconds of tepid water before you have to press the button again. The worst one was 3 seconds of tepid water and absolutely zero water pressure. No matter how good or horrific they are FLIP FLOPS or other waterproof footwear is a must. Wear them in there if you want, mine are designated shower flip flops so I do - but the main reason (apart from a deep seated dislike of verrucas) is because no matter how dire the pressure, your shoes on the side will 100% get wetter than you will. I almost had a total DISAT with my leopard mules. Clutches pearls. Anyway, pop your flipflops on and squeak walk back to your pitch after your shower. You know the sound.

1 CAMPING LAUNDRY It is a risky business & not for the feint hearted. The top loaders we have come across have 3 settings. Cold. Warm. Hot. Ok so I am not risking hot on my Brora blouse, even though I got it in the sale . Let’s go with warm. Hope for the best and pray it all comes out clean. One particular site while doing a white wash, still on warm bc hot could mean a boil wash and I don’t think anything would survive - anyway - it all came out dirtier than when it went in. FFS where did all that grass come from?
Don’t believe any signs saying ‘detergent already added’ it might be 5 euros but still throw in a pod and add conditioner to the drawer. Mercifully the next site had a machine that looked like it wasn’t 55 years old, I threw in 2 pods (1 for luck) and everything came out smelling lush and spotlessly clean. PHEW. Tumble drying is only reserved for rainy days - and towels for obvious reasons - it’ll either come out steaming and damp, or utterly incinerated - and towels are absolutely fine in the incinerator. Am DELIGHTED with my Amazon buy of a washing line that looks like a tape measure so takes up zero space but has been EXCELLENT. There is a real sense of accomplishment when everything is swaying about between the trees, all drying safely in the sunshine. And I LOVE a dig in the Super U or Carrefour for a new flavour in the washing detergent department. VERY PLEASING INDEED.
12. LET’S TALK BUGS. I am still not quite over it, but I am ready to talk about it.
A couple of weeks ago I woke up to a bug in my ear. I KNOW. It was just shuffling about loudly by my ear drum and I am not 100% sure it was evacuated. Not quite sure what to do about it really - and am definitely not imagining dramatic headlines in the Daily Fail. Anyway, the shuffling stopped so it’s either still roaming around where I can’t hear it, or it fell out. Either way we will eventually know, one way or the other, if I ultimately survived. Gav was immediately very concerned because bringing a corpse back would likely raise a few eyebrows at the border and anyway there is literally no storage for a dead body because I have already filled every available nook and cranny with bowls, jugs and lavender soaps.
Ear shuffling bugs aside the mossies have feasted on us. We have the sprays but I must admit now, I’m so over spraying every inch of skin, I have just sacrificed myself in a ‘just be done with it’ kind of mind set and be done with it they have. We are both just a couple of walking talking and very itchy, human mosquito bites now. And the ceiling of the van looks like a blood bath where Gav has gone all ninja and squashed them flat when he hears them arriving on their motorbikes at night.
13. Travelling with the dawg has been both a total joy and also a bit of a pain in the arse. No, she’s not a pain in the arse at all, but it has meant one of us waiting outside a shop, one of us going in to a ‘thing’ and the other waiting outside - actually, that’s just reminded of a hilarious thing!!!
So, It was really hot - too hot to leave her in the camping car on her own while we went in to Super U to get some bits - Super U is MASSIVE and obvs I need to investigate all of it, holiday supermarkets are a holiday WITHIN the holiday, right? So I left G and Molls outside and headed in. G settled down outside with Molly and they both sat down in the shade to wait. He had a little bowl of water for her incase she was thirsty and he had a bottle of water to sip from too, so you can KIND of see why what happened next, happened.
A lady came out of the Super U with a fresh baguette and made a bee line over, waving it above her head and offered it to him. He was confused as she approached him waving the baguette at him and he politely declined her kind offer. I was coming out of the shop just behind her and saw it all unfold. She was REALLY confused as to why he’d refuse. And even more confused when he got up to walk to me and we walked off together - I was beside myself laughing at the whole affair (side note how nice was she) and did she realise and just cringe all the way home that she presumed he was begging and really he was just chilling in the shade with his dog waiting for his wife - If that had been me I don’t think I’d ever get over it and would have replayed it in my head too many times, getting hotter with each replay!! Anyway, I think he might need a smarter tee shirt or something haha ‘Gav, stop looking homeless!!’
14. The other sliiiiight pain in the arse is that dogs really are not welcome on most beaches. Even massive beaches with no one on them. Think Crantock at low tide - miiiiiiles of sand and plenty of room. French people seem to flout this rule, but we are not sure enough A/ how much of a thing it is - there are signs everywhere so it seems like a thing B/ if the French just ignore it and take their dogs to the beach anyway. We have seen plenty of dogs being walked on huge open beaches where there are signs making it clear that chiens- even chiens on leads are not allowed. It has definitely been a pain in that respect because we really don’t have the time to be arrested, and certainly not arrested in French. (Although my best friend’s brother is a top French lawyer, but he’s a busy man in Paris so that one is off the cards annoyingly)

Lastly, back to the subject of camping and we have both become jealous. I know, jealousy is an ugly trait. But we admit it. We are. What are you jealous of you might ask? Well, a couple of things actually. People who have little automatic steps outside their caravan or camping car. One touch with the tip of a toe and it slides out, another touch and it slides back. We have folding steps that we were both delighted with until a Dutch man levelled up with this step situation. Now we are seeing these steps everywhere and you better believe having one installed is on the list of priorities. The next thing is a full length SLIDING mosquito door/net thing. Literally the fanciest thing I have EVER seen (apart from the fancy magical step) and Gav has already googled how to fit one retrospectively. Finally, a full width mat/ground sheet thing outside, tethered, with our very pretty striped mat on top. It makes for a far more practical and professional set up and everyone who has one looks like they know exactly what they are doing unlike us, absolute amateurs. We do have an awning though - it’s really cool and rolls out from this side of the roof - and I realised today that we have no photos of it all set up! You can see where the previous campers had a big ground mat though. ENVY.

So there we are- a round up of stuff from the trip so far. We are currently camping in Normandy, in a lovely site (HERE) directly overlooking Omaha beach, and it is VERY haunting. So many men died here but their memory is very much alive. The buildings down on the front all proudly hang Union Jacks, the Canadian flag and the Stars and Stripes, all criss-crossing in their windows or on their porches and there are tributes, statues and guides to remind us & honour exactly what happened here. The beach is huge and you can bring the dog (!) If you have watched Saving Private Ryan, Omaha beach is exactly how it is depicted. We just watched it again - and we can look out to the sea and see where the US forces landed from where I am sitting - it is low tide and it has revealed part of the broken pontoon system that the allied forces used to get their equipment to the land. It is all very moving indeed. The beach is so silent, peaceful and beautiful yet we can so clearly imagine what happened here.

We have a few days left before Molls has her vet appointment in Calais - its a legal requirement for tape worm - one that she has to have at least 24 hours before our return, so we are allowed to bring her back home and OBVIOUSLY I am thoroughly checking the area for brocantes - we may not have the space but that is not an excuse. Will update!

Last week’s accidental Vide Granier ( which literally means Attic Emptier) was a huge success. Wandering round on the look out for ‘rusty shit’ as Gav calls it (Pah) TREASURE hunting, is one of my all time favourite sports. HA and I am OLYMPIC level.

If you’d like any links to anything I am wearing FIND IT ALL HERE - My Ganni Tee was from Vinted but I linked the new version - its £££ so check Vinted before you splash out!!!

Next week we’ll be back and it is our 30th wedding anniversary - THIRTY omg how can that even be when we are only 38 years old?? 30 though. Bloody Nora that is LONG. Gav deserves a medal if I am honest. We bought a bottle of champagne a couple of weeks ago and we are saving it up for the 24th.

I had a dig and found some photos. I STILL love my meringue dress. And I’d give Gav a 5 star review. Excellent husband, would marry again.