Can’t think of better a way to describe the last couple of months, we have had some wonderful experiences with some special people and met some nice folk too. The last checkin was from the Cote d Azur where we were enjoying the company of Dorothy and showing her around the sights. It was a lovely fortnight but it had to come to an end and so we were sat at Nice airport waiting for Dorothy to checkin, we were a tad early but that was ok because we could enjoy the people watching which included seeing Rita Ora being chased around the airport by the paparazzi.

One of the very lovely things about France is that your four legged friends can pretty much go everywhere with you. Jarjar joined us at the airport and he continued to be a magnet, lots of aaah isn’t he lovely and he is gorgeous followed by “is he a he or a she” and that bending down action to check out his bits, its not enough to wait for the owner to say ‘he”, no people have to check out his bits or as a friend of mine likes to call it his lipstick. Anyway, one of those drawn to our boy was this very handsome man, tanned, buff, in shorts with a very soft Australian accent. He just loved Jarjar and spent ages with him chatting to us but hugging and generally fussing Jarjar who as we know can be a bit stand offish but on this occasion he lapped up the fuss. Eventually Jarjar got a massive kiss on the head and Mr Adonis trotted off to catch his plane. Dorothy was astounded she exclaimed “well I have seen it all now…. A grown man kissing the dog!” Well to be fair we all enjoyed the encounter which was by far Jarjar’s best pull of the trip. We have been stopped on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice by French people asking what he was, could their kids say hi and fuss him. I learnt that Hungarian Vizsla in French was Hungarian Braque or Vizsla Hongrois and yep he was still called a Rhodesian Ridgeback.

Moving on we landed at campsite L’Art de Vivre which is 1.5km outside of Chateauneuf du Pape. What a smashing campsite, one of our favourites. Not cheap but then nothing is in France especially in that area. The facilities were very French, that means basic but they were clean and the showers were warm enough. The weather was something else, very hot so the pool which was a very respectable 20 paces from our pitch was a god send. Our pitch was absolutely ginormous, I honestly have never seen such a big pitch, Hobby, the drive away, Peter (The trailer) and Dorian (The car) all fitted on the pitch with room for Angie and Sally’s car when they came for a few days. We put up all our lights letting everyone know we had arrived and generally made the most of our time. We met all sorts of people and made some very nice acquaintances especially the campsite owners and their team. Joelle and Mano looked after us, they made sure Denise could watch the Tennis on the Bar TV and we could enjoy watching the French beat England at football also in the bar.

During our stay there was a weekend event held by the French division of Touratech the motorbike accessory company. This is a company we both know very well having purchased from them many times and admired their ability to make BMW’s even more sexy. I know some of you will be at a loss as to how a BMW could be sexy but I also know there are a few of you saying yep you are right Jo – Touratech & BMW = sexy. The weekend consisted of hundreds of BMW’s, a few KTM’s and even fewer Honda’s turning up for two nights of loud music (mostly in French) lots of very drunk people and two special guests – The English girls Denise and Jo who used to ride bikes! BMW bikes!! We were made to feel very special and were looked after by the organisers. A great weekend.

Chateauneuf du Pape, the red wine drinkers Mecca its a beautiful little village with one function, flog the lovely wine to the hundreds of daily visitors. They do it very well and to help sell the lovely wine there are some fine eateries. Our friends Angie and Sally came to stay for a few days and we enjoyed a fantastic meal at one of these fine eateries, the view along with the food was astounding.

I am not normally one to complain about the heat but we had three weeks of temperatures that ranged from 36c to 42c during the day and 24c to 28c during the night. The pool was a welcome relief for us but poor Jarjar suffered, he spent all day laid on the bed with a specifically purchased cool air blowing machine at full pelt trying too keep him cool. It took a good 4 weeks for him to regain his spark and obviously feel well again – poor boy. He is back to his normal self now.

A Dutch couple advised us that a good day out was driving up Mont Ventoux. This “Mont” is a bit of a legend amongst cycling enthusiasts and has a reputation of being one of the hardest stages in the Tour de France. It stands very proud, with a 1912m summit that looks as if it is covered in snow all year round, it isn’t, it is in fact the rocky stone that resides at the top giving it a unique look. The advise was do it on a clear day for the views. That clear day arrived and I decided that it would be a nice gesture to let Denise drive Dorian and enjoy the inevitable twisty hair pins whilst I recorded the journey on my newly purchased GoPro. Little did we know the day we had chosen was the day half of the Dutch nation was doing a massive charity event which was mostly cycling up the mountain however some Dutch nutters decided running would be more fun. Honestly, they were all heroes, that is one massive climb, no let ups and as steep as you like. The other hero on the day was Denise who was confronted with hoards of knackered unpredictable cyclists trying hard to cycle in straight lines but only managed to wobble especially when their supports jumped into the road to shout encouragement which mostly shocked everyone causing more wobbling. In addition there were the race marshals whizzing around on motorbikes blowing whistles to draw our attention to the wibbly wobbly bike riders. The motorcyclists came at us from both directions making the experience just that little bit more intense. Well yes the views are fantastic and we found a great picnic spot on the way down, where on our return calmer visit with Angie and Sally we did in fact enjoy a lovely picnic. I think this return journey with the girls who are keen cyclists has ended up with an addition to one of theirs bucket lists. Those that know them can guess who’s list…

One of the really special things about doing what we are doing is we meet some really nice people who do things that surprise us. On leaving campsite L’Art de Vivre, Joelle and Mano waited for us to drive out, they stopped us and presented us with an exceptionally nice bottle of wine, we were both taken aback by this gesture.

Bergerac. This was our next destination where we stayed for a few days with Brenda who really looked after us, feeding us and showing us around the area. For me it was so nice to spend time with Brenda as I think it must be nearly 40 years since I had spent time with her. I am sort of all grown up now and she has spent the last 30 years living and enjoying France, yet it was funny how there were so many similarities to our interests and experiences, motorcycling, motorhomes and traveling.

July 1st we arrived back in England at around 7:30, first stop was the petrol station at the exit to the tunnel where the now traditional “Theresa hug” took place. Always great to see my skin and blister. The night before had been long for me as I had not slept. We (Denise) had driven over 600 miles to get to the tunnel and the plan had been to check in and wait in the car park for our train even though it would have been a long wait. We have done this before, so we expected that to go without a hitch. As my Mum used to say “you know what thought did”. Jarjar was chip checked and his passport checked to ensure we had paid a vet a large amount of money to give him a worming tablet and we were ready for the off. At the toll booth we were politely told to go away so we returned to the pet registration car park to wait for a few hours. It became apparent that lots of other travellers had been told to do the same, I do mean travellers, so we shared the car park with loud naughty confrontational nippers who used the railings as drums just to make sure everyone knew they were there, loud aggressive looking men and even more aggressive looking women. I was also concerned that as we were outside of the perimeter fencing there was a distinct possibility we would have some uninvited guests. Denise slept, I watched Star Wars movies until it was light with my selfie stick at its medium extended length in case I needed to be a little more firm with my “get of my motorhome you naught person” (or something along those lines). None of that drama occurred as could have been predicted however you never can be too sure and I certainly was prepared, having watched 4 hours of Jedi masters I could have taken on anyone in my delirious state.

So what was the rush to get back you might ask? In our wisdom whilst sipping nice red wine, eating good food and enjoying the excessively hot sun we bought a new motorhome. Oh yes we did, Hobby Hobster has morphed into Tilly Toskana. We collected Tilly on the 3rd July! The 2nd of July was a very busy day, there was 9 years of stuff in Hobby, little bits of stuff but none the less stuff. All this stuff was placed into Dorothy’s garage overnight and after operation “sift” the remainder of the stuff has found its way into Tilly. We loved our Hobby Hobster and hopefully someone else will but we have our Tilly now and its very ooooh la la!!

I am sat in the Kitchen of White Cottage writing this preparing to visit Theresa for her birthday later in the week, reflecting that I was in the same place 12 months ago. We have done so much in the last 12 months we both have enjoyed ourselves, our adventure is not over yet we have many things planned and look forward to new experiences and places to visit, Spain next.

Gallery