The dongle says 'non'

Dear lovely friends,

It’s been a long time since we could get onto the internet.  Don’t want to bore you with the hours we’ve spent in mobile phone shops where seemingly nice French people nod and say ‘toute a fait’ but are actually lying par leurs dents, but it has been incredibly frustrating.  Our cle –dongle – has attitude too.  Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t, but mostly it won’t.  It’s been great to find a Wi-Fi hotspot today, at L’Aiguillon sur Mer.  We've been parked up here for hours, revelling in the sheer connectivity of it all. 

We’ve been in France a week now, charting a more or less straight course from Calais to Les Sables d’Olonne.  We’ve stayed on beaches, at a goat farm (nice cheese but very goaty), 

at a vineyard (verrrry nishe wine), and in a car park (not nice at all), and we’ve only spent £15 on campsites since we left.  Tomorrow we’re off to a place called St Trojan on the Ile d’Oleron – there’s a surf school there, so we’re hopeful.  Our wetsuits are all dry in the top-box, and I don’t think I’ll feel proper-holiday-like till we’ve been in the sea.

It feels like ages since we were in England, but even so, a campsite in Worthing sticks in the memory as somewhere NOT to stay. It must regrettably remain nameless - we have nothing good to say about it whatsoever and don't want to get sued - but it begins with a D.

When we arrived, our hosts sighed.  Even when we paid they sighed, which takes a certain sort of idiocy.   When we told them we’d have to leave at 8.15am, they sighed again: “We’ll have to set the alarm then”, they said, gloomily. 

Next morning was beautiful:  crisp, clear and sunny.  We made the mistake of remarking on it - 'nice morning', we said, as you do.  They glared at us.   'All the better for being up so early' was the pointed reply.  There was a blackboard in the reception area on which was chalked “Hello and welcome”.  It was doing a much better job than the owners, that’s for sure.

Lots of love to you all,

M. et Mme. Spanneur