france on film

I’ve had the urge to get out and take some photos using film for a while now so when my new flattie/dosser Sam wanted someone to go to France with for the weekend in her camper van I jumped at the chance. You know me, any thing for a weekend away in a camper, even if it’s not mine.
The plan was set. We both had Monday off. We would head over to Calais on Friday night and drive south down the coast till we needed to sleep then Saturday keep making our way south to mout st Michel, stopping at a few places on the way, spend the day there on Sunday then drive back on Monday to catch the ferry back Monday evening. But you know plans with old vans, they never work out.
Friday after work we headed off a little later then we would have liked and ran in to Friday evening traffic. We got to the ferry 30 mins late but the ferries hadn’t run the day before due to bad weather so there a few extra sailings and we managed to get on one that was leaving 20 mins after we got there.
We took turns driving till we where both tired and when we stopped to fill up with fuel we decided that the services/truck stop was a pretty good place to stop for the night as it had everything we needed so we set the van up for the night and feel asleep almost instantly as we both where shattered.
We awoke to find that we had stopped at a wet land center so after a hot chocolate I had a quick look round and took a few snaps using my trusty old Minolta srT201, that I hadn’t used for about 3 years that I had dug out for the trip.
The weather was great when we set off, and we had covered a few miles when our stomachs decided it was time for lunch. After stopping in a very pretty village to stock up with food we headed for the coast and a beach for a picnic lunch. But by the time we got there the weather had different plans. We parked up just as it stated raining so it was lunch of French bread, cheese and smelly fish paste in the van till there was a break in the weather and we could take a stroll down the beach before jumping in the van and heading off to our next destination, what ever that may be.
I had always wanted to go to the D-day beaches and as we where in Normandy we thought that was a good plan but I had no idea where the US memorial was, as I had been told that was the best one to see. A quick stop in Le Havre for look round and a stop at the information center and after I had studied a few maps I knew where to head, sort off, but after we had one more stop. I had seen a building on the way in that was just a big square box with a column on top. I had joked to Sam how ugly it looked as it was just made out of concrete but while at the info center I found a book featuring the building and I just had to stop there on the way out of town to check it out. Now it still looked like a giant breeze block from the outside, with a million tiny Grey windows, but once we got inside we discovered that all the windows have colored glass on the inside so the walls where a sea of color. And the column was the same, and from the center of the building you could look all the way up the inside. It was amazing. It looked kind of futuristic.
Back in the van and on the road again it was getting late in the day and we started thinking about parking up for the night. It was decided to hit a caravan park so that we could shower and so forth. The only thing is that it was the end of Jan and there was nothing open in the way camping grounds. After driving round for a while we stumbled in to a little town called Supercamp thinking there must be some thing open here, but there wasn't. We did find a great little spot right on the harbor front though and after a drink a local pub so we could use the toilet, we headed back to the van to cook the first meal and watch a dvd about a crazy French man with chloroform.
The next morning we had ice on the windscreen of the van so it must have been pretty cold over night, about -1 we guessed but we had been warm as toast. But we had hunger in our bellies and we hit the road again to find warm food for breakfast and continue on our way to our destination.
As we made our was back to the motorway we stumbled across the U.S. war memorial. We had a long look through the visitor center as it was under ground and warm and then a quick look round the memorial garden as the wind had got up and it was freezing. It was pretty somber walking through the hundreds of crosses and reading the names and ages of those that where killed. In a way I was glad it was windy and that we only managed to explore one of the seven or eight fields that over look Omaha beach.
Now the rumble in my tummy was taking over and we hit the motorway with pace, a little to much pace. After sending a text msg to Pete telling him how good a time we where having, I looked over at Sam and those dreaded words came out of her mouth, "I think there is some thing wrong with the van!" The van had no power. We coasted to the side of the road and we tried to start her but nothing. I pulled the engine cover off and checked a few things to find that the fuel pump had given up.
What to do, what to do? We could see a SOS phone up the road a few hundred meters so we got our warm coats on and headed up to try and tell a lovely French lady on the other end of the line that we had broken down and that we needed help. We finally got to a point where we had an idea of what was going on and headed back to the van to snack and watch more dvds till the three, thats right, three rescue trucks turned up. One tow truck and two road work trucks with lights on to close the lane while the van was put on the tow truck. We had called roadside assist by then and they told us that in France you can't work on a car on the side of the motor way so we had to get towed off the motorway and then when we could call then and tell them our location.
Once we had got the van, who's called Alice, off the truck and paid the tow truck driver, then called roadside assist to let them know our location, we sat and snacked and watched more dvds till the next tow truck and a mechanic arrived to put Alice on another truck to take her to his work shop to take a look at her. Once there he confirmed that is was the fuel pump and that as it was Sunday we would have to wait till Monday until he could get a part. By this time the weather had turned pretty nasty and with the van not running it was pretty cold in the old girl and the thought of spending the night in her wasn't a pleasant one, so when the roadside assist people called us back to check everything was going ok we we very kindly asked them if we could get a hotel some where, fully prepared to pay for it as we had planned to to that anyway so that we could have showers etc. No problems they told us. They even sorted a cab to come pick us up.
The hotel was heaven. The room was really nice, and warm. There was free WIFI so we could check our emails and the shower was amazing. We couldn't have asked for anything better. It had been a long day and as it was dinner time we headed to the hotel restaurant to have dinner and a few drinks. Now when I say a few drinks what I mean to say is a very nice bottle of champagne to go with our nice dinner so we could truly relax after the stress of the days events.
After dinner we headed back to our room to watch a bit tv and then hit the hay as we had no idea what was going to happen in the morning.
After a great night sleep we had breakfast and stocked up on a few things for the van in the way of jam and honeys. It was as we had finished packing that we got the a call from roadside assist that the van part wasn't going to arrive until Tuesday! As we both had to be back at work on Tuesday morning we decided that we would try and get ourselves home, after having a quick look round the local cathedral. But after the cathedral we felt a little hungry so we stopped at one of the only places that we could find that was open ordered some grilled crepes with cheese on them. Yum!
While at lunch we asked about trains to the next town as the roadside assist had told us that they would look at renting us a car to get back to the ferry but by the the time that we had got to the train station and got the train to Cane they had worked out that it was cheaper to put us in a cab back to the ferry to La Harve, which was about 130Ks, and when the taxi dropped us at the ferry terminal the meter was at about 150 odd euro, paid for buy roadside assist of cause. From there we jumped on the ferry and chilled all the way to within a few miles from Blighty till roadside assist called us again to inform us that when we had departed the ferry that there was a taxi ready to take us form Portsmouth all the way back home to number 6 in London, which we guessed was at least a 200 pound fare.
We arrived back at the homestead about 11pm, about the time we would have arrived home if Alice had made it under her own steam, so we hadn't done to badly really for two people with no planned transport.
We both had a good weekend and I think that Sam discovered that having an old van means that sometimes it will break down and usually when you least want it to.
But the good thing is that the van is still in France so I guess that we'll have to plan another trip over to go and fetch it. Wicked! another van trip!

Of cause there are a few images from the weekend here and a link on the right for you to have a look at. Enjoy