Monday was deemed time for a break from the carnage of battle. Carol particularly had long wanted to see Le Mont-St-Michel but, since we rarely stay that far north for long, we had thus far avoided it. It’s about 100…

Sunday morning dawned beautifully clear and we decided to head back to Arromanches to resume our tour where we had left off the previous day. We wanted to cover the ground more rapidly so chose the main road out of…

Saturday morning is market day in Dives-sur-Mer and the old market hall quite a reputation as an architectural attraction. No trip to France can be called complete without a raid on a local market so we planned this for our…

Having completed an intensive wine-drinking training schedule over the past four weeks, today we carried our battle to the enemy with a direct assault on the European Wine Lake in its very heartland. We were roused at 4:45 AM for…

The ubiquitous “they” say that it takes visitors to make you do things that are on your own door step. That was certainly the case when it came to the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway. We have been living in…

It started early – much earlier than I would have liked. I awoke at about 4:30 AM on Christmas Day but unfortunately it was not the sound of sleigh bells that had roused me. Outside there was the sound of…

This was a pretty quiet day; everyone seemed to want to take life slowly after the preparations of the previous week. In the afternoon, Carol and I went visiting Carol’s sister and mother (who was down from Scotland) to exchange…

(Well, “Wild Goose Chase” would have been a little too obvious as a title, wouldn’t it?) On the day I wandered into Waitrose intent on ordering a goose for Christmas, they were unable to take such orders due to their…

Saturday morning got off to a poor start. There seemed to be a dispute brewing within BAA (British Airport Authority – it looks after the running of Heathrow and Gatwick airports, amongst others) and an intention to strike on January…

Calendars get pretty full around Christmas so family gatherings can be a little difficult to coordinate. However, Friday evening seemed to be free for both my mother and cousin so Friday had been set for our traditional exchange of presents…