Holidays...part 7

Wednesday

We shouldn’t have let Tom sleep in the car, he kept waking up in the night and calling for us.  Not a great night’s sleep, especially considering it wasn't windy or rainy!

The weather forecast wasn’t good again for today.  However, it was a bit warmer which was welcome.  We decided to have a half day out and half day in the camp today so headed out to Ranville and Pegasus Bridge to see the bridge and the gliders.  The museum was quite small, but full of artifacts, but of course the main thing to see was the ‘actual’ bridge and the life size replica of the glider in the garden.  Once again, I’m not sure how much went in with Tom (especially as he was noticeably tired and therefore fidgety today) but he now certainly knows the Germans were the baddies and we were the goodies and we won the war.  He is very curious as to how wars start, it’s a hard concept to explain (The second world war being easier than the first world war) but slowly I think he is beginning to understand.  If, when they do the war at school he is able to add a tiny bit of knowledge to the classroom discussion I will be happy.

Horsa Glider

The museum was littered with life histories of some of the soldiers that survived.  One in particular stood out – a Yorkshire man who parachuted into France, got captured, escaped (by cutting a whole in the bottom of a train with a knife), got back to England,  got reassigned to the gliders, was the only man on his glider to survive (had to have his leg amputated) but still went on to many more escapades.  Quite a character.  I wonder if he is still with us?

Once we were done, we headed to the new bridge for a look and had lunch at one of the cafes.  We were served by a very friendly waiter who allowed us to order in French, but then reverted back to English when he had something to ask to us! We are suffering from the usual problem here – neither of us are great at French, but whenever we try to speak it (or even before we get to speak it) we get spoken to in English.  That makes our life easier, but it does mean that our French doesn’t get any better.  I understand why they do it but it is really annoying when you make the effort to speak their language just to get it thrown back in your face, it doesn’t do anything for your confidence and after a week of being here I’m now wondering if I should bother trying to say anything in French?!

Soldier Tom

Anyhow, after lunch we headed back via a short stop at a supermarket for cidre and pain raisins (oh and a cheeky bottle of whisky which was being sold at half price).  We then went back to the campsite.  Tom and I went for a swim / slide whilst Matt did some work.  A storm approached, and my word did the heavens open.  It didn’t rain, it bucketed it down.  Luckily there is an indoor pool here, so we were in that, but the rain on the roof was deafening and the water pouring down the sides was unbelievable.   Tom and I thought we were in the right place, but just as it was easing, a wet Matt appeared, he needed help as the tent was flooded out.  Tom and I left the pool, but then Tom thought our tent had floated away and got a little upset.  By the time we had got dry and got to the tent the rain was over.  There was quite a pool of water in the kitchen which we mopped up with a bucket and mop.  Took a good hour but we got there eventually.  Luckily nothing got damaged.  Just one of those things, if you are camping you have to expect and deal with the worse.  At least it wasn’t cold or snowing (that’s happened to me before!)

The sky cleared for a while so we got out the boules set and played that.  We then decided to make tea, however, the rain started again, and this time it wasn’t going to end for a while.  A shame as I needed water for the rice and we were planning on a bbq.  We waited a while, but the weather was set in.  I was going to get soaked just getting the water, and there was no way we could do a bbq.  In the end we gave up and went to the restaurant at the campsite for a very average dinner (lots of people here had the same thought and they were over run and under staffed making the service and food pretty poor!)

Oh hum, it had stopped raining by the time we got back to the tent, but then it started again, so we played Uno until it cleared up.  Tom then went to the toilet block to do his teeth  etc and was in bed for 9.30 (quite early) and was asleep in half an hour – phew.

The rain stopped once he was asleep and so far hasn’t come back.  We are crossing our fingers for a nice day tomorrow – one weather forecast says it will be nice, the other says it won’t!  Don’t think we will be remembering this holiday for good weather….