Full contact French The Manche Iles Express ferry from St Helier to Granville is a passenger ferry. A large catamaran ferry. It was full of French tourists and a French high school excursion so the ferry was almost full. Teachers walked up and down the aisles counting heads. We departed at about 18:30 Jersey time and arrived at Granville in France at 21:00 French time. There was a big orange full moon over the harbour as the ferry slid into the dock. There ...

The Travelodge at Portsmouth was bogan city. Comparable in quality and price with the Ibis but without the the AccorHotels European ambience. Actually it was the Sovereign bar & restaurant at the Travelodge that was bogan city. There was a kids room at the restaurant and when we arrived there was the ragged remnants of a children’s afternoon birthday party. Mothers drinking white wine and smoking on the pavement outside the entrance. Their issue running rio...

On Sunday morning we drove to the village of Codford in Wiltshire. Codford was on the western edge of the Salisbury military training area in WW1. The New Zealanders established a military hospital here and it was for the treatment of those who would not be sent back to the front. Many who died at Codford died of disease; flu, meningitis, TB, infection, etc. There is a small ANZAC cemetery in a shaded area near St Mary’s Church in Codford. A majority of the dea...

Right. Welcome to the meeting. My name is Gwain. I’m chairperson of the Committee. The only outstanding item from the last meeting has to do with the poor quality of thatching in the past month. Now everyone knows that our master thatcher is on holidays and his apprentice is trying really hard. He’s a good lad but he’s as dumb as a bag of stone hammers and he likes his mead. So let’s cut him some slack until his boss gets back. Okay? Now for the main ite...

We stayed in a lovely B&B in St Just in the fat west of Cornwall. Had a meal at the Kings Arms where we were joined, uninvited, by a rather sad and lonely old man who wouldn’t shut up. He was a mandolin player originally from Scotland and now living in Bordeaux but visiting friends in Cornwall. Learned way to much about his ex-wife and children. He’d been to Australia to visit a niece and attend a world gathering of Camerons, his surname. When I went to p...