Three goto France 22 - Let the planning begin!

So we have committed ourselves to 15 days in France on a small tour. We cross around midday with Eurotunnel. It's a lot more expensive than the ferries from DFDS and Irish Ferries but allows Reggie to be with us as we queue up to get on a train and also with us as we cross under the Channel. As long as the trains are running on time (a rarity in my last 20+ years experience) we should be acros and in good time to get some shopping done for the next few days.

If we had gone on the ferries he would have to stay in the Van on his own and lord only knows how stressful that might be. He has been on the train a few times before in the car and was asleep or faking it each time. The ferry would have been about £100 less for the return journey! A plus is that the Eurotunnel entrance is about 5 miles from home!

Now that we have a start and end time, I can start to extend the search for somewhere to stay and effectively a destination once we get over there. This is a bit I like doing. Is it just me or is there an excitement to planning a trip. Sometimes I plan and don't even get to go. Especially when Covid was dropped on us!

Another consideration is that the UK left the EU over a year ago and as such we are now a third nation. Despite all kinds of crap, as well as the good stuff, from Brussels being enshrined in UK law we are now restricted in how long we can travel in the Schengen Zone. Although I suppose getting stamps in the passport will be a novelty usually reserved for more faraway places.

This is not to show your friends where you have been but so that they border guards can see how long you have been there. Not quite as bad as it used to be to cross into East Germany before the Wall came down (I did that several times!) but the same mentality looks to be being applied.

Reggie (or Snoop to give him his microchip name!) is on a raw food diet. When eating canned food he suffered from persistent bad stomachs and even diarrhoea/diarrhea. Unpleasant for him and us in equal measures.

But because we have been downgraded in the eyes of the EU we are no longer able to take meat products with us. What he eats is made from human grade meat. Made under the same conditions as it was in 2017 and 2018 when we last went over and took his food in a cooler.

So one of the jobs when we get over is to search for either a supply of dog food similar in construction to what he has now, or to feed him minced chicken or beef and add vegetables to it. He likes carrot anyway and we regularly give him a carrot instead of a biscuit or flour based treat. Apparently there is a name for raw food and it is "barf". In English to barf means to be sick or to vomit!

So now to look for some overnight stops and of course a destination to head for. I am all for a tour that takes us down the eastern side of France towards Annecy and then either further down on the Cote d'Azur or westwards to the Auvergne before looping back homewards.

Let the planning begin!