It’s now September, and with some trepidation I’m on my travels again. As I had promised our Jennie, some time back, I’d not do any more hairpin hills; and was contemplating doing Holland, here I am. Well, here I will be soon enough. Getting an afternoon crossing through the Tunnel, I have arrived in France, and staying with Mme Laurence at the Camping St Louis, prior to exploring the Netherlands. As it is in French Flanders, it’s sort of a gentle easing-in to the whole Low Countries thing. And there’s a restaurant here – snails, followed by baked camembert with charcuterie. Having got chatting to Rob and Jane on the next pitch, (and their dog, Patch – the most friendly JRT I’ve ever met) we decided to dine together. They were trying out their new-to-them A-class motorhome, on its first real outing. Very comfortable looking; I got camper envy again! But I mustn’t get Willma jealous. It turned out they too had both been bereaved, so we were able to gently compare notes. Jane was originally from Stratford too, so another point of contingency; having. moved away to London for a while, they now live in the Cotswolds. They are off to Germany and Switzerland in the morning. It was nothing I said.

I’ve been quiet on here this summer. The heat got to me, as it did most people, sapping the energy. But I have been away: WOMAD festival again with Pete and Debbie; which was fun if exhausting. Lots of traipsing around, good music, weird food. I did manage to get in, despite not having pre-bought a ticket (in my addle-brained confusion, I thought that the campsite fee included admission. Oh no it wasn’t! They did make an exception and allowed me to purchase on the gate. I winced at the £300-odd price tag, but I was there already, so whatever. No pockets in a shroud and all that. The music was great: a little more varied in kind. Very much enjoyed the discussion tent, run by Byline Times – got to see Peter Gabriel talking about copyright in the AI age. In the end I came away early, as I’d ran out of steam. It meant I missed Jose Gonzalez, the only act I’d heard of, but that’s life.

My other outing, just a short trip, was to Pevensey Bay, to the C&CC site at Norman’s Bay during the solar eclipse. The idea was if I didn’t make the effort of sitting in a field, I wouldn’t have the same experience (and might even miss the moment, knowing my brain these days.) which was successful. As I was experimenting with my cereal packed, trying to make my viewer, my neighbour offered me some proper solar specs – she was a member of an astronomic club in Durham, and seemed to be doling out these glasses to all her neighbours. So I got a really good view in the end. At one point I climbed the shingle bank in front of the sea, where a group of campers had set up chairs to watch proceedings. They too had viewers from the sam astronomical lady.

Tomorrow I’m off to Delftse Hout, by way of the bonkers border town of Baarle. But I’ll save the description for the next post.