Its Early Autumn

View outside from inside Le Shuttle/Eurotunnel at Folkstone.

View outside from inside on the other side

View outside form inside arriving in France

Soon after arriving at the gite and it's dark

Cooked the tea and fire on. Its starting to get a bit nippy

Set off a bit later than usual and got to Oxford Services for lunch. Cheese and pickle sandwiches. The car park was very busy as they’d closed some of the spaces to make way for charge points. At least that’s what I thought the big hole in the ground was for and some structures. On the other hand it might have been for a power supply for the existing charge points which are still fenced off. They were like that a couple of months ago.

Off we went again and a couple of hours later or so got to Le Suttle/Eurotunnel via M25.

While waiting we turned on the radio looking for one radio station but found a lot of French radio stations on DAB of all places. I was not aware DAB was in France. We’d been using FM normally or a digital TV.

It had gone dark by the time we arrived at the gite. I thought about putting an electric fan heater on but then decided it would be better to light the log burner instead.

Nice meal and good wine. We were using a bottle from the stock we’d bought and left behind last time as we only wanted to take a particular number due to capacity in the car.

27.9.25. Saturday

One of the tress has grown considerably

On the dog walk

A nice lane further on the dog walk

Off to the vets for the dog's tablet to get back to UK

More fallen apples than I expected. Thought the apple season was over.

Still some apples on the tree

Evening sunset

Up later than usual but it is France - an hour ahead and it is Saturday. Breakfast, walked the dog then vet and then shops. Lidl is here so we went there. The dog gets his worming pill which is compulsory to get back to the UK.

The rest of the day catching up with ourselves and picking a few apples. I thought apple season had ended. It seems not. Plenty of fallers to choose from. Not picking the ones still on the tree yet.

28.9.95  Sunday.

Dog walk a different way

Nice forrest for walk in the afternoon

Would go to a local C of E church but they aren’t gathering this week so I put a Christian radio station on on the inter web.

The problem with having a gite in the country is that wildlife can sometimes turn up. There is also the phrase while the cat is away the mice will play. Well, we certainly got that. 2 dead mice which needed to be disposed of before the dog found them. A good dramatisation of the book in the Bible called Leviticus. Which is a list of various minor laws  It includes rules about Tatoos etc. and there must be a certain amount of human activity in an area otherwise wildlife takes over.

In the afternoon we decided to go for a walk in some nearby woods.

29.9.95  Monday

Went to the shops and in the afternoon went to a local beach, about 45 mins away. This time we found a tipped and sunken WW2 gun battery on the sand dunes.

30.9.25. Tuesday 

Going home day but first a trip to the bank to change the phone number so we could get access again to our bank account. While we were there waiting in the queue something interesting happened. Someone came in and stated they needed meet someone in the bank as they had a doctor's appointment. I wondered why they couldn’t go to the doctors first then realised they needed to pay for the doctor. Its a small fee in France.

We got back then packed for the return to England this included the apples (fallers and some straight from the tree). The musical instruments, trumpet, small piano and guitar. Thankfully I’d had a go on each while away.