Back in the UK.

Tuesday 7 June.

 

It was a lovely morning when I got up to make a cup of tea. It was a cloudless blue sky and the wind of yesterday had dropped away to nothing. When we had finished our tea we dressed and got out for a walk along the beach. The sand was soft at first but as we got nearer the shoreline it became hard packed and was flat. This was ideal for walking and we went out for 15 minutes before turning and making our way back again. It was fairly quiet on the beach, a few others walking and we saw one guy out for a jog. The ferries were running and going by the noise through the night it was ongoing. A P&O ferry was turning into the harbour as we arrived back at the road. At the boulangerie Moira picked up a baguette then it was back to the 'van.

 

I tried to get the TV while we had breakfast but the picture was breaking up again, instead we listened to the radio. We were packed up and ready to go by 8:30 am and even though our ferry want until 10:45 we headed for the terminal anyway. Moira and Tom Tom found a more direct route to the harbour, more or less the one we walked when we came over to do the Via Francigena. I went as instructed by Moira to the DFDS check-in point and when I showed our booking on the iPad was told our ticket was with P&O. I had to reverse out and cut across to the P&O counter. Next it was French immigration followed by the UK one, the British border is still this side of the channel and it depends on the outcome of the EU referendum if it stays that way. The next thing was a search of the motorhome for presumably illegal immigrants or stow-aways. They didn't find any and we proceeded to our designated queue line to await boarding. I thought there was nearly 2 hours to wait until the ferry and was working happily on my iPad but they started loading almost immediately. They must have put us on an earlier crossing.

 

We were one of the first on and made our way up to the lounges for a seat. There was WiFi on board but they wanted £2 to connect, I didn't bother, we will find a MacDonald's and get the WiFi for the price of an iced cream. The ferry got very noisy with parties of school children coming over from France to visit Canterbury Cathedral on a day trip. They were continuously wandering round and round in groups and they didn't seem to be able to just talk, they shouted at each other. I went to the loo and when I came back Moira was surrounded by a group of the school girls. They were going through a questionnaire with her, it was in English and must have been a project for their English language class. It was questions like, where she was from, her hobbies, favourite football team. The final question was did Moira have any advice for them, she said: always have a raincoat with you when in the UK.

 

When we arrived at Dover it was a job getting through the crowds of school kids waiting to go down to their buses. I didn't envy the teacher's job making sure that they were all safe and sound and present. It wasn't long until I was off and having to remember to drive on the left now. I took the A2 dual carriageway going to Canterbury. We were making for the small farm caravan site that we had booked into at Barfrestone, from there it wasn't far to the village of Shepherdswell where we want to walk the leg of the Via Francigena that we had missed. When we left the A2 after about 7 miles it was very minor single track lanes with passing places to Shepherdswell. From there it was another mile to Barfrestone on an even narrower lane without passing places, luckily nothing was coming the other way before we reached the farm.

 

At first we didn't think it was a working farm, it was so neat and tidy but we did hear cows moo-ing and the smell of manure in the air. The 'site' was the courtyard surrounded by large brick barns and through a gate in the corner was the house with a lovely garden. The couple in the house were in a hurry to get off some where and we only had time to say 'hello' and get instructions about where everything was. I tried to get information about getting to the start of the walk we are doing tomorrow but they kept looking at watches and were obviously desperate to get away. Back at the 'van Moira hooked us up to the electrics and although it was early we had lunch, that is early by BST but we were up an hour earlier for breakfast and now hungry.

 

The early morning clouds had cleared and it was now very warm. Moira got a chair out and sat under a tree on the lawn while I stayed in the 'van and listened to Jeremy Vine on the radio. When his programme finished I joined Moira outside. Unfortunately the good weather didn't last long, dark clouds gathered and we moved in before the rain started. It came down in torrents along with thunder and lightning. It went off after an hour but later in the evening there was another storm and it was still pouring down when we went to bed. It wasn't looking very promising for walking in the morning, even if it was dry the ground would be very wet underfoot.

 

Other times for doing things was getting back to normal and we had our dinner while 'Eggheads' was on the TV. Then we washed up in the sinks at the toilet block. It was the usual TV later and we got to sleep at about 10:00 pm to the sound of the rain beating a steady tattoo on the 'van roof.

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