Christmas in England - arrival

With the uncertainties of Brexit on the horizon, this seems like a more than usually important time to visit our family in England, and we are really looking forward to being with Jeff & Fi, Sam, Sas, Heather and Ben and also seeing Ed, Isla and Karen for a while.  Lots to look forward as I sit in our Folkestone hotel which was a nightmare to find in the wet and dark, but it all felt better after a drink in the bar!

The past two days started early, very early, as we drove up a dark and almost deserted A9 from Lunel to our overnight stop in Burgundy, not quite knowing if the gilets jaunes would add to the uncertainty of Brexit.  Weekend reports were not encouraging - we read of fires on and by motorways and toll booths, a whole section of the A7 from Avignon to Valence closed, numerous entrances and exits closed as our own local ones had been on and off for the past few weeks.  We started out full of anxiety, just hoping that after the weekend the demonstrators would all heed to colder damper weather and go home.  

All sorts of thoughts have crowded in on us as we've driven 1,000+ km up France.  We drove without seeing a single gilet jaune. Tant mieux, and of course there are fewer in the north than in the south, fewer in midweek than at weekends, fewer now than there were 2 months ago. But we were reminded that until recently a frequent electronic message on motorways here used to be 'respect the men in yellow’, and today it says something like ‘agents anticipés’. Does not trip off the tongue as the other used to, but no danger of mistaking workmen for protestors, at least in the wording of messages!  

One final thought about these demonstrations - we read in a local paper in Burgundy that local groups of gilets jaunes are hoping to form associations so that they can be eligible for grants from public authorities!!  So people who began by demonstrating against too high taxes are now hoping some taxation will be spent on their groups.  In fact, merssages are mixed - some want lower taxes; others want to preserve services which are being cut.  On top of that, some have destroyed lots of things, motorway toll booths and sometimes the roads themselves with fire.  Vinci (one of the motorway companies) reckons they will need to spend millions repairing things.  Not easy to square with keeping up tax-funded services.  But enough, we don't understand everything and no doubt there are important causes to be fought.  The rest of this will be, more pleasantly, concerned with our doings.

Our first port of call in Burgundy was our friends Jean-Michel and Christine Jacob, whose wine will accompany us to England and (some of it) back home.  It's always a pleasure to see them again, but their story really belongs in my wine blog where I've often written of them (here for example), so suffice it to say that we were warmly received and delighted with the wines we found and could take away, as we hope our family and friends will be!  We had a good simple lunch in Beaune, a pleasure to revisit this lovely town, and then sought our our hotel.

lunch in Beaune - Mary appears twice thanks to the mirror next to our table!

The hill of Corton from our hotel terrace

We'd chosen a Logis hotel in Ladoix Serrigny, on the south-eastern flank of the famed Hill of Corton (origin of grand crû wines which we did not seek out this time, both red and, unusually north of Beaune, white (Corton Charemagne).  It was a simple but comfy overnight stop and we set out at leisure for the north today.  The roads were quiet, the weather mostly dry and often bright, and the middle stretch in particular as we approached Troyes across the Fôret d'Orient was full of the amazing variations of colour and texture of winter scenery, branches, fields and hedgerows.  The last stretch past Reims and on up to the coast is long and less interesting to look at, but we made the Tunnel hours ahead of the time we'd planned and so crossed into wet Kent and our first night on English soil, looking forward to seeing people as we travel north tomorrow and after.