The Tooth Fairy

Tooth mouse
Isn't it funny how kids don't know the value of money until their teeth start falling out!Between the two of them, Jesse and Tanner have lost 7 teeth on this 6 month trip. Now normally in S.A. the tooth mouse (well only Tanner believed in the tooth mouse till recently),will dish out between R5.00 and R10.00 BUT now MY kids have figured that R10.00 is only 1 Euro in France and really! what can you do with 1 Euro! So between the two of them, they figure that anything you can buy for R10.00 in South Africa costs a whole lot more here, so 4 Euro's is a good figure for loosing teeth!!!!!! I think my kids have a good future to work in Government, as they have already figured out how to get as much money as they can out of mom and dad. Well they got what they wanted in the first lot of teeth but we didn't realise that they would keep on jolly loosing the teeth. I am sure that their karate manouevers are for this intention only! Anyway, for those of you who have been seeing photos of Tanner with an odd shaped tooth (the only tooth left in the middle front had been moved and was hanging weird) - well it finally came out 3 days ago - with the help of a karate kick from Jetan! What can I say, he is learning from the older two!
Tanner is quite happy, he is a bit richer and he now does not need to worry about the tooth. This is the tooth that we were considering seeing a dentist in France about - but even though we paid an arm and a leg for travel medical insurance, they still wanted the first R2000.00 out of us which was not refundable - so hey! maybe paying the 4 Euros a tooth is not so bad after all. Needless to say, they actually don't have this money yet, I told them it will be put in their bank account in S.A. Of course they now got clever and want to know - If the exchange rate gets worse does that mean they get more money??? Not stupid kids we have raised I can tell you!
Okay - where are we?
We left Chamonix a few days ago - VERY sad to leave our Winter Wonderland. Looking at the photographs don't help because I just want to go back. We decided to leave on Thursday and make our way to Le Mont St Michel. It was basically about a 16 hr trip in our little van. On Thursday night we stayed over in Beaune. The next morning we met a couple who had been in their van for a year. It was not even a camper van and had no shower or toilet just a converted truck. They spent 6 months working in vineyards and 6 months holidaying. The husband had been living in the van for 6 YEARS! Anyway they approached us asking where they could find water. For those of you who read our last Blog when we were in Beaune (this was during the Rugby Final), you will remember that we also had trouble finding water cause the government turns off all the taps and trust me the French aren't too happy to give water. The couple, that we watched the rugby final at, have a little boy who suggested that we go to a certain park and "under the ivy" we will find a tap. Well at that time we did find the tap. So "Sure" we say to the couple, we will take you to the water but we couldn't quite remember how to get there. So off we drove to the Tourist Information who were closed! VERY IRRITATING - everything closes between 12pm and 2pm in France but thank goodness they had maps of the city outside their door so we could look on the map and see where the park was.
Off we headed only to discover that the tap had had the end taken off it so we could not get water after all but there was a silverlining to our cloud, the toilets were open BUT have you ever tried to fit a 25 litre jerry can under a tap that has a basin under it - it doesn't work!!! So we tried filling up a jug and filling up the jerry can but because of the angle of the basin and the size of the jug, we could only fill up the jug about a third of the way and pour that into the jerry can. The husband runs to his van and comes back with a hose and promptly holds it under the tap and commences to fill his jerry can. They then proceeded to fill up ours which was a huge relief.
Our journey continued to Mont-Saint-Michel but we had to make another stop - sorry I can't remember the name of the place but we left very early that morning and Dean drove non-stop until we reached Mont-Saint-Michel. In those last 2 days he drove on average about 8 hrs a day in the pouring rain. Mont-Saint-Michel to look at was absolutely stunning. Will send you all a pic as soon as I have downloaded them. Of course it was still raining and the wind was really cold but we trekked to the little town. For those of you who don't know - it is an island steeped in history (Dean knows more about that than I do).
The views from the top were stunning and we were not sorry that we had trekked all the way to see it. We only spent Saturday night here. Once you've seen the island there is really nothing else to see, so we left on Sunday morning - once again it was pouring with rain.
For the first time in 6 months, this part of the trip was not REALLY planned - by this I mean, this part of the trip (last few days) has just been a means to an end. That end being getting to Calai tomorrow by 12:30 pm to catch our ferry at 2 pm.
The day before yesterday we stayed in a city called Rouene. It was our plan to stay at least 2 nights but finding the internet connection there was terrible. That night we found an IBIS hotel (this is where most of our hotspots have been), and I literally had to walk to the front of the hotel and sit there and try and connect. I really tried but my fingers were too cold so I had to go in and ask if I could connect in the hotel, thank gooness the guy was nice enough to say yes. The next morning we had the same problem. I once again had to go into the hotel, this time a Formule 1 hotel. There was only wifi in the rooms so the receptionist was kind enough to open up a room for me, I was there 10 minutes and the new occupants of the room arrived, so I had to leave. We then decided, it was time to leave Rouene so we carried on driving and I am typing from where we have ended up - in Boulogne.
What a cute town and I am happy we decided to move on with the trip to get here. We are currently parked on a quay - quay's have featured quite a bit in our sleeping/travel arrangements over the last few months. Would you ever DREAM of sleeping in the harbour in Durban or on the beachfront???
Yesterday I ventured into the little town (thank goodness we had a bit of sun, but Dean said that he was feeling the coldest he had in a long time because of the wind) and was happy to find a laundromat and a Boulangerie (bakery) - boy are we going to miss the baguettes. Just a quick diversion - Dean goes to a bakery the other day and asks for 2 baguettes and points to them. Well he was quickly reprimanded in French as to the fact that those were NOT baguettes but Pain! Now Pain actually means bread - isn't a baguette bread?????? Now you can see that bread (in any size, shape or form) is pretty serious business to the French.

At the moment we are all out of gas. We were so hoping to not have to fill up the gas bottle. We need to return the one gas bottle to Brian (Samantha's uncle) but his is a English gas bottle with different connection and we wanted to fill that one up for him BUT now we have to fill the French one as well and it's for ONE DAY ONLY! How frustrating. Unfortunately, no gas means, no cooking, no tea (Jetan will never forgive me), no fridge and no heat! I am currently sitting in the van at 10am and I am blowing smoke - Let me repeat mysel - I AM IN THE VAN!!!
Having all the rain in the last few days has not helped our slump into a slight depression because we now have to go home. I have made comments throughout the last 6 months regarding the bathing,cooking,sleeping arrangements but to be honest, I am dreading our last night in the campervan. This is to be tomorrow night!
Friday, we go to Gavin and Glenda and spend a weekend with them. Sunday we hope to spend some time with Adrian and Wanda and the English's - Remember Larry and Juliet - well they've immigrated.
Then on Monday, we head for Stockton - about a 4 hour drive for us - hopefully we will see more snow but at least we will be bundled up and warm inside Alan and Sue's cozy home.
We fly back on the 28th, arrive Joburg the 29th, drive to Durban on the 30th.
Watch this space for our final blog :(
AND
An email with the photograph of our future camper van - Yay!!!!!