So here, at the beginning of September, we are in France. The Barfleur [about which, more later] was busy on this Thursday morning, heaving with both young couples and their pre-schoolers and decrepit, or less ancient retirees, all of us revelling in this just-post-summer start of the school year. This is an altogether delightful time for us, for Husband and myself because for all of our working lives we were stuck with school holidays and now we are free to travel at this balmy, end of season time- what travel writers like to call the ‘elbow’ season.

If anyone had asked me a couple of months ago if we’d be away this September I’d have scoffed. Major surgery was looming. I didn’t expect to be mobile to this extent. OK, I’m not to cycle and there are other restrictions for a while yet, but I can certainly walk, explore, observe and photograph. It doesn’t seem long since I was handing my camera over to Husband as he strode off and left me seated somewhere.

I felt a twinge of sadness as our ferry chugged out of Poole harbour this morning, as it was our last voyage over on the Barfleur, which is to be sold off, the route axed as the French ferry company, Brittany Ferries seeks to rein in expenditure, debts having mounted. We’ve used this route for years as Poole is local for us- a mere half hour’s drive away. Poole’s huge, iconic harbour is scenic and beautiful. I shall miss sailing this route.

Our last French jaunt, made last year, was disastrous [https://gracelessageing.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=8132&action=edit] so it takes a leap of faith to strike out again. We’ve struck south to a different, new overnight stop from our usual aire, at ‘Grandcamp Maisie’ a small, Normandy seaside town. Why have we changed? Perhaps it was time, or perhaps we felt the Saint Brice en Cogles aire we’ve used so much to be a little jinxed now, since that is where the van refused to start on our first morning.

This aire, like all of them, is plucked from our trusty book of aires- although in the event, not so trusty, as rather than being the cosy, council run, 9 euro aire described, it is now a vast, company run area accessed via an app and a code. When we reach the barrier, Husband reverses the van out in disgust and resorts to scouring the book for somewhere else, while I turn on roaming on my phone, scan the QR code, download the app and get my access code. We are in, although when there seems no way of paying I assume we must do so in order to get out again…

We walk down to the seafront. Grandcamp Maisie is a quiet town with a strange hotchpotch of housing of all descriptions and no conformity whatsoever, which makes it interesting. Along the prom, one or two bar/restaurants are open so we select one. It’s tiny but already people are piling in. Once we’re seated, I open my phone to see a message from ‘Camping-Car Park’, the firm that owns the aire. I must pay within 15 minutes or else… [or words to this effect]. Or else what? Eeek! Getting towed away? Getting clamped? Impounded?

The tiny restaurant is not conducive to phone signals so I shoot out on to the prom and work my way as hastily as I can through the payment process, finally managing it. I’m not thrilled though, at having to choose an amount to pay from a selection of prices that are all more than the cost of the aire! Now I have a ‘balance’, of euros which I do not want.

I decide to forget it and enjoy my meal, which I do, and the pork pieces are too huge for us to eat them all so we get them parcelled up for lunch tomorrow.

In the morning we are up, emptied and filled with fresh water and off to pastures new- and yes- we are able to escape the aire- phew!!!

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com