Final French Friday

Slept in. No breakfast to be missed in hotel so we went out to the cafes on the street... not many awake and operating at 10:30 am, but found one that could do coffee and tartines (bread and butter, with jam). Sufficient.
Neil went for a run. I went for a bus ride: the Montmartrobus, all the way around its route. Turns out the best part was the downhill trip we had already taken, but the rest had interesting moments and vistas, too. It's an electric bus and the drivers are quite brave about their narrow and hilly route: sometimes it feels like a roller-coaster!

Took Metro along our line to Solferino stop, which is the Musee d'Orsay. Had crepes for lunch in a cafe there, met Cyn and Ros and toured for 2.5 hours. A bit of museum fatigue. Excellent building, excellent art! Saw a mouse who lives there.

Rested before dinner and ate together at the Relais de Gascogne at our corner. Cyn went off to a concert, Ros, home, Neil to Ros's to pick up laundry--he's probably reading in bed while he waits for me to come upstairs...
Also, I'm trying to call Mary Ann, but no one seems to be home in La Wantzenau.

A Parisian Thursday

Decided our hotel was much too small...after being squashed in the breakfast room without even the space to butter our bread!

hotel search, then a trip up to sacre coeur (by funiculaire). Saw an older, much more spiritual church behind the big one... St Pierre. Had coffee at Place du Tertre, looked at artists working and selling, came down by montmartrobus.

Moved to new hotel. Hotel Surcouf: what does that mean? Larger and cheaper, a bit funkier. had lunch chez Callard ... on local purchases, and got a little laundry going, too.

Callards took us to the fabric shops.. many and huge, and diverse! A few purchases: I have some restraint.

In the evening, out to the Ballet at the Opera with Cyn. Amazing building, imparired view, ballet: Le Parc, interesting but not satisfying?
Dinner after, Bistro Romaine, fine.
Bed by midnight, good long sleep

Wednesday = moving day!

I rose early to breakfast with Neil and pack my bags. I also picked up the 3rd set of photos... all are now on My Yahoo! .. see a previous blog entry for details!
I got all the stuff together, paid the incidentals bill at Holiday Inn and had a long taxi ride to the new hotel in Montmatrtre, Hotel Andre Gill. Friendly and non-smoking but tiny! Bathroom unit included shower, sink and toilet in a very small space. Had to go outside the room to change one's mind!
It cost 99 euros. We thought we might get a better deal somewhere!

Neil caught up with me there after the conference on Wed. night, and I suppose we went out to dinner, but it's all blurring together now!
I will edit this as the details come into focus. Ha!

Another Day in Paris

It's Tuesday, so now what? Time to just wander about. I got on a bus and went to the end of the line. That turned out to be the Parc Montsouris, which had been familiar to us when we first arrived in Paris in 1971. I walked through the park, possibly in a straight line, of which there are few! I admired the concrete tree branches that serve as stair railings and saw some real trees that had been upturned in a storm a few years ago. There were joggers, picnickers, kids playing, cafés on the edge, birds, and of course, chestnuts. I had wisely taken some antihistamines, so the trees had less effect on me and I got to kick some “conkers” along the path as I went.
The reason we knew that park well was that it is next to the Cité Universitaire, where we stayed first, that Sorbonne winter in Paris, before we moved to Choisy-le-Roi because of Kevin’s impending birth. My feet were beginning to complain, so I did not go to tour the Cité or the Canada House, but I know they are still there. I simply took the Metro (technically the RER or regional railroad) up to the Latin Quarter, which is the centre of Paris for me. I window-shopped, wandered, visited the Canadian bookstore, Abbey Books, on rue de la Parcheminerie. I had lunch in a café with a view of Notre Dame and a waiter who teased all the customers. The food was good and not extremely expensive. The sky was still bright blue and the sun shining brightly. I strolled along the quais of the Seine and browsed –and even made a purchase—at the book stalls there. How Parisian can we get?
Of course I stopped by the Fontaine St Michel and the Musée de Cluny just to say hello to my favourite monuments. Then I tried on some shoes—not the right shape for my feet, malheureusement—and continued my stroll down the Blvd. St Germain and the little streets behind. Window shopping, sitting down to rest my feet and watch the people: I have seen about every kind of footwear on women, most of them looking quite impractical for any walking.
At the church of St Germain des Prés, I found my bus to go home. It is a longish ride but I saw lots of interesting people, places, and shops, including the shoe store I really want to go to, Arcus. Maybe later?
Back at the hotel, I found another good soak in the tub restored me. I waited for a call from Neil as to the time and place for dinner, and had nearly given up and was preparing to go to a movie, when Cynthia called and gave me the facts. Unfortunately, I left the info on the desk and so I turned up on the wrong street and finally had to take a taxi to the right place, La Closerie des Lilas, which was posh, traditional, etc. PSC was entertaining a woman from Cameroon who had done research for them, plus her thesis supervisors, from U. Laval. Very pleasant dinner.
Neil packed his stuff for our next move. I left that till morning.

Biking in Paris

Monday was a beautiful sunny day and I decided it was time for action. I hopped on the Metro and went to the Eiffel Tower, where the Fat Tire Bike Tours meet up. It was easy to find the right spot: there was a young Canadian with a sign. Greg is from Vancouver but had just graduated from Western. I was among the first to arrive, and it took about 20 minutes to collect everyone. Then the group went to the office and paid and got the bikes. From there, we rode in a herd, on sidewalks, garden paths and right across the Place de la Concorde, in front of a bus. The bikes are an odd shape and I had some trouble with seat height and wobbly handlebars, but there were no accidents. Greg pointed out places of interest at several stops and we had lunch in the Jardin des Tuileries before heading back. Quite a good idea, and not too strenuous, although I could feel the tension in my hands and legs from balancing on a strange bike, trying to get my feet on the ground when stopping, avoiding collisions with the rest of the group and animate and inanimate objects in our path, and being lectured by little old ladies about riding on sidewalks.

I soaked in the bathtub to cure these aches and had a call from Neil, inviting me to join him and Cynthia for dinner at a friend’s apartment. I was able to get there eventually, but only after getting a bit lost as I left this neighbourhood (one of the most confusing in Paris). Karen has a lovely apartment in the north of the city, and we had a great time talking, eating and drinking wine… a proper French dinner. I slept on the Metro coming home, hardly noticed the long walk to the hotel, and was still sleeping when Neil left in the morning, but that’s a story for another day.

Sunday in Paris

I did manage to get up in time to have breakfast with Neil and some colleagues before they took off to pre-conference meetings. Then I collected my wits and my tourist gear and set out to rediscover Paris. It just happened that this weekend was the Doors Open event, Journées de la Patrimoine, and there were a lot of interesting buildings to be visited. The first on my list–the nearest—was the Musée Pasteur, but it would not be open until the afternoon and it wasn’t even 11. So I began by buying a 3-day pass for the Metro and buses and hanging out in the sunshine at Metro Pasteur. (Well, I was also finishing a Harry Potter book, and used my sitting time in various ways, mostly just watching the passing scene.)

Pasteur is a stop on Metro line 13, which goes many interesting places, and is elevated, not underground, through the scenic parts, such as near the Eiffel Tower. I got off on the Right Bank of the Seine, at Trocadero, where there is a pair of huge museum buildings arranged in a horse-shoe facing the Tower. I parked myself inside a café (Café du Trocadero of course) and had lunch, watching the people, traffic and sunshine. The chestnuts were bothering me (dry autumnal leaves are apparently just as tear-inducing as the spring flowers) when I was outside, and inside, the smokers were annoying as well!

After lunch I was just wandering and found that the Museum of Architecture, which will not be opening for another year or so, was having a sneak preview. That sounded intriguing and it certainly was! The 2 huge buildings are known as the Palais de Chaillot and they are vestiges of the Expositions of 1900 and 1937. There are various science museums in one, but the other is becoming an architecture museum, among other things. What do you display in an architecture museum? First of all, there are the buildings themselves. The 1900 part has had some of its 1937 façade stripped away and the Eiffel-inspired steel arches exposed. It is all still a work in progress…the future elevator was just a hole in the floor and the stairs were nothing but blue lines drawn on the wall. The other thing you put in such a museum is full-scale casts of famous medieval facades…which were made in the 19th century, and have turned out to be invaluable for modern restorative work. They are really impressive, because the plaster has all been coloured like the original stones and bricks, but when you walk around the back, there’s really nothing there, except some wooden braces! Had a guided tour and really learned quite a lot. PHOTOS SOON I hope.

Then it was time to head to the Institut Pasteur, to tour its museum. The building stands on a little campus with a garden, behind a fence of course. The museum does not grab your attention at first, as there are many panels to read about various important French scientists I never heard of. Then the tour leads you upstairs and you begin to see the past a little more clearly. On the top floor are some bedrooms, with the original dark, stuffy furnishings, a “modern” (ca. 1900) bathroom, and a lab displaying some of Pasteur’s actual instruments, and his test tubes with actual liquids and things inside them, preserved. That was intriguing. Downstairs were the salons (full or works of art, medals and other items presented to Pasteur by grateful people, princes and nations …he had them all displayed in fancy cases, even during his lifetime) and dining room, which was used as the boardroom by the Institute. The house has not really been lived in since Pasteur’s widow died. And then, on to the basement for the most extravagant part of the tour: the crypt!

Does the word “crypt” conjure up a dank, dark, musty, spooky place? Well, this one isn’t! It is in the basement, but it just shines with light and (self-) importance. The walls and ceiling are covered in gold and polychrome mosaics, much like the ones we saw last year in Alsace. All Pasteur’s important scientific achievements are shown in symbols (vine leaves for discoveries about wine, yeast and fermentation, the cow for milk pasteurization, mad dogs for rabies treatments, and a half-dozen more). He is buried under a simple but very large, black marble slab, which is the only undecorated object in the crypt. Light apparently comes from a dome window in the ceiling, but I realized it is the same spot where light mysteriously comes up through a grill just at the entry on the floor above….

After all this adventuring, I had dinner by myself at the hotel, since Neil was out at an official dinner. The Callard girls invited me to go to a movie, but I was too tired, so simply watched Erin Brockovitch on TV, in French of course.

A long day for very a short trip (Saturday)

It was a few minutes after 3 a.m. when Neil woke me; he was dressed and had the coffeepot going already. I slipped into the clothes I had laid out the night before and drank some coffee: we were ready to roll by 3:40. And roll we did: through the quiet countryside, along the mostly empty motorway, and right into Heathrow, where we made a couple of detours but ended up in the Avis lot in good time. The shuttle took us to the terminal and we began lining up. Heathrow’s gate-attribution system is frustrating for infrequent travellers. The gate is not announced on-screen until very close to departure time, so you have to hustle to the gate, which is a long way, of course. And then you line up again, to get on the plane. Then the plane had to line up. Air traffic control in Brussels said we would have to wait to land in Paris, and so we couldn’t leave Heathrow for a while. Of course other planes needed to get to the terminal so we “went to park in a quiet corner for a while,” to quote the pilot. The 40-minute flight happened eventually and he did not have to circle Paris too long. Then we lined up for immigration, lined up for baggage and found our way to the bus into Paris.

When we arrived at the Gare Montparnasse (back door, apparently), we hoped to find a taxi because of our quantity of stuff. The first one said it was too short a trip: the Holiday Inn was “just over there”, but we had a useless map and could not figure out how to get from A to B. We tried another taxi, who said he could take us if it wasn’t a very long trip (go figure!). He was very pleasant and found the hotel, and charged us a bunch of Euros.
So, we thought our troubles were over…well, almost. The key-cards for our room did not work. Neither did the second set brought up by a staff member we found in the hall. Only the staff master keys or the Emergency key worked, so we spent the weekend passing that key in at the desk and retrieving it, whoever came home first.

Lunch at a sidewalk café near the hotel, where this cat holds court.
I popped out to the Champion grocery store around the corner and acquired chocolate, Picon, herbes de Provence, and Russian Earl Grey tea. What else should I be buying, folks? Cynthia came along and took us to her apartment (for the month) in Monmartre. It consists of one large room, with bed, couch, chairs and TV—with a view of the Eiffel Tower and other monuments--a bit of a kitchen and a bathroom. Her sister Rosalind and their niece Mikki are living there, too. First, though, we had to shop for some dinner ingredients, such as roasted chicken, bread, pie, cheese and wine. The street has lots of shops, cafés, people, action. It looks like this from the apartment window.

We had a pleasant supper, catching up, and the Eiffel Tower was all lit up when we left. There was a full moon, too: I didn’t get the picture of both, but I did buy some postcards.

Day tripping

Friday was a beautiful day and we set out for Salisbury and Stonehenge. This was Neil’s first visit to the stones, and he was quite impressed. I definitely thought the tourist arrangements were better than the previous time I visited (1989) and the free audio guides added a lot to the experience. It was sunny and windy—isn’t it always windy on that bare hill?

Salisbury – a typical old town. Handy central car park, with inns around it where lunch was obtained and I got the first batch of photos developed, printed and put on CD…that’s how I can show them to you now! If you would like to see all of them, check my 2005-09 album at http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/barbcollishaw/. We went to see Salisbury Cathedral, one of my favourites, but ran out of paid time in the parking lot, so couldn’t linger. Too bad!

We returned to Marwell and packed up our stuff, for it was our last night there. We had a light supper in the bar, Zanzibar, and paid our week’s bill. No worse than we expected, and all things considered, quite a good value. By Friday night, the families are coming in for Saturday weddings. There were lots of folks in the bar and some boys running up and down the fire escapes, making lots of clanging noises, but they settled down in time for us to sleep. We had to sleep fast, of course, to get up at 3 a.m.

The day it rained (Thursday)

For Mary Ann & Antoine’s last day at Marwell Activity Centre, it rained off and on. That just adds to the fun, they say.

In the morning, while Neil worked at his presentations, I went swimming and eased out the shopping and driving kinks from the previous day. Then I persuaded Neil to take a break and go off to Bishop’s Waltham for lunch. We stopped at the ruins of the bishop’s (or the bishops’) palace, which looked wonderful in the drizzle. Turn your head for one of these!

We wandered around the very quaint town in search of lunch, which we found easily enough. It is obviously a tourist magnet, given the antique stores, etc., that line the main streets. Most of the town dates from the 1600s. Lunch was quaint and not very fast, but the sun was out by the time we left.

Then Neil wanted to work some more, while I was invited to try out the quad bikes with Mary Ann. Lots of fun! Here’s a picture of Mudder. Like all my quickly-uploaded photos, it is sideways, so you'll have to turn your head or your screen!

After they finished cleaning the bikes and themselves, got the final things packed, had a drink with the boss, etc., etc., we picked MA&A up and went to Southampton. We had dinner at the White Star, which turned out to be a fine-dining kind of pub…very good, but expensive, of course… and then tried to drop them at the bus station. But bus station not open until the bus comes in. Their bus was at 1 or 2 am (going to Stansted Airport, outside London). So, we dropped them instead at a nearby entertainment mall called Leisure World (movies, pubs, games, etc.) and said goodbye for the moment. They were on their way to La Wantzenau (Strasbourg) to see Tony’s family.

Neil & I made it home to Marwell and slept well.

Wednesday’s long and winding road

Mary Ann and Antoine had another day off, and since they had decided by then to leave their jobs at Marwell (and the boss had decided he couldn’t keep them on in the slow season and couldn’t house them in the cold season that is approaching), they had packed up their stuff and were ready to ship it to La Wantzenau.

Neil decided to stay home at the hotel and work on his presentations for the conference. Mary Ann, Tony and I loaded the car with bags and loose stuff and headed off, first to Winchester, to drop Tony at the train for London. He was going “up to London” to pick up the freshly-bound copies of his thesis, and would join us in Portsmouth. MA & I tried to go to the Mail Boxes Etc. shop in Winchester, but were frustrated by traffic and so went straight on to Portsmouth instead. There, we found a parking place right next to Mail Boxes and the most helpful people in the shop. We left them to sort out the repacking and took a long and frustrating road to lunch at the big outlet mall -– Portsmouth Quays--MA was keen on visiting. She went back to complete the shipping transaction while I did one corner of the mall. Did not buy much, but had a good time looking. Even bargain prices are too high for me. Tony met us (train station is next to mall, next to harbour) and he shopped for desperately-needed shoes.


After shopping, we tried to see Nelson’s ships, but the museum was closed. Hung about at the docks for a while, then returned to Marwell. By then we were hungry and all went to the Ship Inn for a lovely dinner. More internet, booked flights and got bus information for them.

Very sorry, everyone: the pictures are all sideways this morning!

Winchester (Tuesday)

First accomplishment: We did not sleep in so late that we missed breakfast!
Second: We used our newly-acquired local knowledge and found our way to the Winchester Park & Ride so we could take a shuttle bus into town and avoid the hassle of town driving and the expense of town parking. We just missed a bus, of course, but had time to admire the landscaping.

Big disappointment: We headed straight for the Brooks shopping centre to see the Roman ruins (the ruins were being excavated on my last visit, in 1989, and I knew that they had been preserved in place, and a museum built in the basement of the new shopping centre. Found it easily enough, but it was “Closed due to vandalism”…

And so we walked around the old streets and visited the cathedral, which is old, too. Quite impressive. Had a great tour guide who knew all the old bishops and sints, etc. Heard the story of the diver who saved the cathedral (went under the foundations to remove vast quantities of peat and replace them with bags of cement. That was in the early 1900s. There are 2 statues to him, with his old-fashioned diving gear. Had lunch there, made by church ladies. I showed Neil the hotel where Mum, Ted and I stayed on my previous visit. The Winchester Royal had no room for us when I wanted to book, but in the end, I think we’re just fine at Marwell, with no driving in town and no parking worries, not to mention the proximity to MA&A.

We met up with “the kids” and went to a pub for supper. It had 2 names: the Hungry Horse was the name of the pub-food chain, but the actual pub had another name, so Mary Ann thought of it by one name while the Hungry Horse stuck in Tony’s mind. The food was pretty good, and enough to choke a horse, as advertised (No, it apparently did not serve horse meat!).

Admired the stars, since the nights are always dark here, although often cloudy. Did more internet research and decision-making and drove the young people home late at night, where they surprised the camp owner with squeaky gate and our lights…they thought it was another prowler (Tony had scared one off the night before.) No shotguns involved, anyway!

Signage and Names

Reading signs on the British highways has been quite entertaining, as always. For instance, to get to the hotel or zoo, we have to turn at a ruined store that says GNOME LIGHTing. That tickles me. To get to Owslebury, you go through a section of extremely narrow road marked, “Oncoming traffic in centre of road” and that is true! On our last visit there, I met a large truck (a lorry, of course) just when entering the village, where the road was at least a lane and a half wide.

In a “car park” the other day we were following the EXIT signs and realized that they were not WAY OUT as usual here.

On the motorway, at a couple of service centres, the sign at the exit warned "Not 24 Hrs" --- now what does that mean?

Some corners have "PART-TIME LIGHTS" (I guess they have a good union!).

One favourite we passed often, in Twyfford, reads:

Real Pub
Real Ale
Real Food
Real People
........ and a little sign next to it "Part-time chef wanted"

Aside from Owslebury, we have been to Over Wallop, Middle Wallop and Nether Wallop and more!

Marwell Hotel – a room with a zoo

Here is our Renault Mégane Scénic in front of the Marwell Hotel, which is right next door to the Marwell Zoo. Unfortunately, the zoo animals are not visible from the hotel, although their PR suggests they are. The wild animals we saw around the hotel were mostly pigeons and rabbits, except for one “wild” cat out hunting (for birds or rabbits, I suppose).

The hotel has a African theme, like a high-class simple lodge –think Chateau Montebello but in finished wood , not logs. And lots of glass. The five or six buildings are joined by glassed walkways. We were in the Giraffe Pavillon; there were also Zebra and other animals. The restaurant is called Zavannah, the spa Zuri, and the bar Zanzibar. It is very quiet and the stars can be very clear. The woods are all around and there are wild blackberries.

The main business is weddings on the weekends and trainings, meetings, etc. during the week. We had most of the Hampshire Constabularly hanging around for a couple of days.

A quiet Monday at the Zoo

We slept well. In fact, we slept so well and so long that we missed breakfast (stops at 10 am on weekdays)! Neil went for a run. I made coffee in our room. Eventually, we went out to a nearby pub (The Queen’s Head) for lunch. My lunch was the ever-so-British bangers and mash, while Neil was tempted by the description of a vegetable-stuffed crepe. Mine was grand, but Neil’s did not have as many vegetables as expected and much, much more cheese. It was surprisingly lasagne-like.

After lunch, we went to the zoo next door to out hotel. It is a good zoo, not huge, but with animals in fairly natural settings and lots of good opportunities for people to view them. We walked around there from around 3 until closing time at 6, and we saw: giraffes,

antelopes, warthogs, maras, penguins, zebras (several different kinds), Amur leopards, sandcats, Amur tigers, more antelopes, a Somali wild ass, a red panda,

cranes, guinea fowl, wider ducks, mongooses, lots and lots of lemurs, and a snow leopard…


I went for a swim and a soak in the whirlpool to soothe my feet and MA&A biked over for dinner here in the Zavanna dining room. Computers were fully used to arrange travel and other plans for upcoming days…. Fell into bed at last, well after midnight!

Sunday on the Isle of Wight

First thing on Sunday, Neil and I slept in. The breakfast at the hotel is served until noon on Sunday, luckily, so we were able to fortify ourselves before travelling. Where were we going? Southampton! We were to meet up with MA&A at the White Star Pub (from which the Titanic sailed, of course), because their Sat. night party was a kind of sleepover, and it was closer than going home. We got ourselves into the dock area, and enjoyed wandering, with a vague idea where we were headed. We were carrying Antoine’s phone, so with phoning, dead reckoning, a semi-useful map, and a lot of luck, we did indeed meet them. We had parked close to the pier for the Isle of Wight ferry, so that worked out well. It was expensive (Everything is expensive!!!) but how often do we get to go to the Isle of Wight? (I was not expecting it to be until the time When I'm Sixty-Four)

The ferry trip across The Solent (the strait between the English mainland and I. Wight) was a good way of seeing many, many boats and ships and vessels and maritime traffic. It takes under an hour and you land in the town of East Cowes (pronounced COWS), where there is a grand view of the water and some fine shipyards, but no pubs we could find for our lunch. Eventually, we took the “floating bridge” or “chain ferry” across to Cowes (still COWS) at the high price of 1.30 pounds (times 2.3 for C $). The crossing takes under 5 min. But on the other side there were shops and pubs and some very posh yacht-building and yacht-furnishing establishments. Cowes, as we were not aware, is a very important centre for racing and building yachts. Lunch: pub with good view of the water, average food, not too many smokers, expensive? Of course. Must stop thinking about the money!

Our original plan to make a circuit of the I of W fell victim to reality of time, and so we went down the middle to Newport, and over to the east side, to see a natural feature called a “chine” and the seashore at Shanklin. We saw a lot of tourists and tourist-attracting shops, and paid (too much of course) to walk down the path and steps in the lush green, mostly waterless Chine ( A chink or cleft; a narrow and deep ravine; as, Shanklin Chine in the Isle of Wight, a quarter of a mile long and 230 feet deep. ) and then we walked back up concrete steps along the steep cliff. All this fresh air was good for us, after sitting in the car and ferries…

Proceeding around to the north coast, we were aiming for a different ferry at Ryde. But that one was full for hours and hours, for those foolish folk who hadn’t made a reservation (a booking, it’s called here—but whatever it’s called, we didn’t have one). So we went back to East Cowes and parked near the ferry dock. Then we discovered that pedestrian passengers travelled free to Cowes or back, so we hopped on and went to the Duke of Something’s pub for a pint as we waited. Made it back to the big ferry in good time, and some of us had some cafeteria food and drink, as we crossed in the twilight and arrived in the dark.

The route home through Southampton’s suburbs took us through Hedge End and other quaintly named places. MA &A came in to the hotel to use the internet in our room, and we drove them home before everyone fell asleep.

English driving

Arrived at Heathrow a few minutes early and went through the long Immigration line with no particular delay. Bags were retrieved quickly and we ound the Avis counter, with 3 people (groups) ahead of us. One clerk. Over an hour from getting in the queue to getting on the shuttle to the car park. Tiring. Met a retired couple from London Ont.., Mr & Mrs Anthony Woolley. They live in Westmount and have a trailer at Wildwood in Bayfield. Just proves the world is small.

Got our car, a Renault Mégane Scenic…small minivan or fat wagon. Pretty posh. I got in the wrong side at first, and found it Extremely spacious…then I realized that was because the steering wheel was at the other seat! Got in my proper place and checked out the space-age controls. The key is not a key: it’s a fat card that slides into a slot just below a large button marked “START STOP”, which is what you push to start or stop. I think we have found all the window, door lock, temperature and radio controls. The shift is located high and central, and works well, even for me. I have some regrets about insisting on a standard, but that is what I have driven all other times in England and Ireland, and it was never a problem….

We have been on a variety of roads, starting with the M25 and M3 (400 class in Ontario), country highways, tree-shaded country roads and lanes, and several tiny roads with the ominous, long-winded sign: “Warning, Oncoming traffic in middle of the road” … I’ll get the exact wording later. The scariest ones are those with parked cars and traffic. There is no extra lane for parking and our car feels quite wide… I have a tendency to stop and let everyone go through first, which slows down the journey. I have done well enough, though. Bumped a few offside curbs (kerbs) and a few roadside bushes (vegetation is rampant here, like the Pays de Gex or any rainforest) but no stone walls, people or cars. So far so good!

That’s the road report. Other topics to cover include Mary Ann (& Antoine)’s job, their plans, our hotel (Marwell: a room with a Zoo), the Isle of Wight and whatever happens next….

First squawking of Snowparrot

Preparing to fly across the Atlantic tonight. Long trip: must remember to pack lots of crackers!