SUN 24th - DAY 1

Well! I just tried to start doing the blog and the wi-fi connection at Hotel Touring tried to make me do it in FRENCH! After all that work on Italian I had (sort-of) forgotten that one had to traverse France to get to Italy and that, in doing so, one has to communicate too. Anyway my French seems to have evaporated.

Pic of Debbie and how they tie the bikes down in the ferry.

We've arrived at Hotel Touring and the first thing is our Hotel is only open because WE are here. Monsieur Touring (the bloke who runs the Hotel) is trying to have a few days off to fix his old Volvo... he's kept open so We can stay here.....so Debbie creates our first crisis by breaking her back-rest on the bike and M. Touring goes and makes a make-shift bit to fix it in between polishing his right wing. Er... oops... they've voted again since I last looked. We were/are very grateful and he's very chuffed with himself.

We left Bedfield at 4.15am (ever so slightly en-retard)  but even so got to Dover shivering with cold and we were grateful for Costa coffees and friendly quasi-Cockney waitresses. The crossing was uneventful apart from a little girl being sick all over her Dad right next to us - Rob was asleep but Debbie recounted in technicolor. We rode about 386miles today which seems not-very-much for the 12-or-so hours between home and here, but we ONLY went scenic routes - lots of great bends and views and Debbie was not-a-bit scared: Rob'll try harder tomorrow tho'. 'Moules marinieres' for lunch and then a silly huge meal tonite for our 29th Anniversary: Kir royales etc. We are going to go into Reims Cathedral in the morning which we briefly visited tonight.

Pic of Debbie with Monsieur Touring - bike-back-rest-restorer.

Early to bed 'cos of Puffin Ensemble and last night had only 3 hours sleep... both nearly dropped off the bike on various beautiful French bends today but, thankfully, not at the same time.
Tra-la-la... just sort of cough on the 'r' and it'll sound a bit French.

PS - I'm asking anyone who has done a blog before.....Is this the kind of thing a blog should be, or am I pitching badly?   XXX