Scream if you want to go slower

Due to our mechanical issues, we’d not been able to reach our intended target of Vitry Le Francois on that first day. Instead we made an impromptu stop at a campsite next to a small, walled town called Le Quesnoy. We’d never heard of the town before but can confirm it is a lovely little cobbled enclave and comes complete with its own moat, boating lake and historic town centre. Our stay at the campsite itself was slightly less rewarding, in that there was some sort of children’s karaoke competition taking place until late into the night which meant we had to endure a noise worse than when foxes mate. Imagine a recording of Joe Pasquale being tortured, played backwards, at the wrong speed…

Talking of horrific noises, in the weeks before we set off on this trip, we’d had new brakes fitted to the van. The van is celebrating the fact it has new brakes by emitting a glass-shattering scream every time we come to a stop. You can see people physically cringe and cover their ears every time we approach a junction or set of lights. So, imagine our concern when we were waved into a layby at a random police check point and watched about eight police officers immediately regret that decision as we screeched to a halt in front of them.

We’ve seen a few of these police checkpoints in random villages and on various roundabouts during this trip and can only assume it is a result of the heightened terror alerts of late. Our stop, however, was less terror-related and more error-related. Once they’d recovered their hearing, the heavily-armed police officers approached our van, led by a heavily-gummed policewoman. She was very smiley (which might not have been deliberate, given the gum situation) and asked us a series of questions: Where were we from? Where had we been? Where were we going? And so on. 

When she’d asked where we’d stayed the night before I said Le Quesnoy, pronouncing it “Kwezz-noy”. She laughed and said “Oh – Le Kinny” or something equally as ridiculous. Anyway, because of this slight on my pronunciation I wasn’t really listening to her next question. I thought she said “Has it been good?” so I responded, very enthusiastically, saying “Oh yes, very much so!” The confused look on her face, combined with the fact that a couple of the other officers had now started looking in the side windows, led me to believe I might have said something wrong. I turned to Claire, who was laughing and shaking her head saying, “No! No, we don’t!” Apparently, what the policewoman had actually asked me, in her heavy French accent, was “Have you any forbidden goods?”  

Once we’d convinced them of our innocence (and our inability to pronounce French place names) we were waved on our way. I had to stop at a junction just a few metres later and I could see them all in my wing mirror, laughing at our screaming brakes.

We eventually reached our campsite just outside Vitry Le Francois and what a great little place – really peaceful and completely uncontaminated by singing children. It was also just a pleasant 15-minute cycle ride along a canal into Vitry itself and we made the most of this by heading into town for a spot of lunch and a beer. We chose a random bar on the main square and Claire tried to order a Caesar salad from the board. “I don’t think we do this,” said our waiter before checking the blackboard and revealing that what was actually written there was “Salade Gésier” – gizzard salad! Claire is vegetarian so asked what they served without any meat or, more importantly, gizzards involved.

“Oh, flippin’ ‘eck!,” said the waiter, “I will check with chef.”

We asked him how he knew a phrase like “Flippin’ ‘eck” and he said he’d worked a lot in Australia and the UK. He asked us where we were from and we said, “A little place called Shrewsbury, you probably don’t know it…”

“Oh yes,” he replied, “Home of Charles Darwin. I once got very drunk on Pride Hill!”

What are the chances? He got a good tip!

After a great couple of days, it was time to move on. When we’d arrived, we were under the impression that the campsite owner was a grumpy old bugger with an exaggerated limp but he turned out to be quite a nice chap. Albeit with an exaggerated limp. So nice was he, that when we went to check out he limped towards me brandishing two massive green sex toys. They turned out to be big, gnarly cucumbers that he’d just picked from his garden and he was insistent that I took them with me. I’m not a massive cucumber fan but didn’t want to appear rude so I thanked him and said I’d take one.

“Non!” he barked, “You take both!” and he thrust them into my hands. Rather nervously, we left one of our favourite campsites clutching two really big, ugly cucumbers. Next stop, Auxonne.