43 and counting

The text in this post is fairly prosaic, the photos tell the real story of our happy UK trip.  This in Wirksworth where we stayed with Sam & Sas and the children

I started this post over 3 months ago, on our 43rd wedding anniversary.  Mary was busy making the Christmas cake downstairs, and (as often) we were looking forward to some nice wines before and with lunch.  It is also 15 years since we left our home in England and set out for France (finally settling in Lunel by mid-December).  Mary had bought the house some months before, and we're still enjoying the space and quiet of  the little cul-de-sac we moved to, with at least two neighbours who have become friends still around us.

So things have remained, but a lot has changed, not least the awful Brexit which stains our lives.  But we feel comfortable and lucky to be where we are, if sadly we've been too distant from family and friends in the UK partly due to the pandemic.  But we had a great trip to England over Christmas and new year - more on this below.

Around Jeff & Fi's in Staffs

Our musical activities (cello groups and lessons for M, choir for me) are beginning slowly after enforced lay-offs, and I am also increasing my involvement in the Anglophone Library (known as FOAL - 'Friends of...' ) in Montpellier, a smallish collection of books in English with its own pleasant rooms kindly provided by the city.  I am just getting to grips with priorities (according to my rusty librarian training) in reorganising and better cataloguing, working with an enthusiastic committee.  It has beavered away for over 10 years to reach the stage we're at today despite the hiccups which sometimes blight voluntary committees (the departure of a longstanding member has left lots of holes and problems to sort out).  We are just reaching the final stages of revising the catalogue, putting in new book orders and feeling very optimistic as the new year gets going.  I'm really enjoying getting back into library work.

Our trip to the UK was surrounded by health checks and red tape, and in the tight controls before Christmas we only just made it across the Channel before a deadline.  The restrictions applied to both directions, and the return journey turned out to be even more complicated than going over.  Those like us who have a good reason to come into the country when most foreign travellers are prohibited could then only do so by doing several things. First, we had to have a negative lateral flow test within 24 hours before our journey into France. We already had a contact with a pharmacy which does tests near our friends’ house in Surrey, so we booked ahead, then set out for the coast as soon as the results were known.

Christmas in Wirksworth

Second, as well as that test and your passe sanitaire (proof of vaccination, now renamed such by the French govt), in advance the French govt requires two documents - an official form obtained through the official website, and issued by the préfecture of the region you are travelling to (in our case for the Chunnel it was I think Hauts de France) which you complete online and comes back with a QR code you need to keep handy (we did not realise this and went round some bureaucratic houses at the terminal before it was all set straight). Then there is an attestation sur l’honneur saying you have a good reason to come (for us, supported by the cartes de séjour we both have had for a few years now).

In the Wedgwood pottery museum near Stoke

Most of this was scarcely glanced at by the various officials we saw. If we had been able to upload our documents to the Chunnel website beforehand it would have been even easier, but the upload system was not working properly, at least for us. But everyone was very helpful, and we were very lucky to be going through at an extremely quiet time. As for smuggling things, Mary commented we could have taken a boot load of contraband through - they were only interested in firearms (on the way over it had been people-smuggling which most interested the British immigration people).

A beautiful day out at Shugborough, Staffs

By the way, we have long been fans of the Eurotunnel Flexiplus service. It seems expensive, but no more than an overnight in a hotel and in these Covid times, going through a sparsely populated terminal instead of milling with others and getting on the first train that suits you, no matter when you’d booked, seems even more secure, and free, nice food and drink en route is a bonus that fuelled our journey south!  And so a long but smooth drive home, no hotel stops on the way, and we were back to a very quiet January, full of sunshine, with Covid scares that thankfully turned out to be no more - the French infection rate has been sky-high recently.  The dogs were very pleased to see us and seem no worse for the several weeks in our excellent local kennels.

finishing as we began at Jeff & Fi's rural retreat in Staffs

More on family and friends in a future post I think, but after a long delay this is just to wish you a happy new year.  I shall try to resume a more regular blogging habit...