Steadily climbing the mountain, enjoying the view along the way

KajiKita

Nous sommes en Normadie! 😊

It was a VERY long day yesterday… Got up at 3am, packed the car, drove to Portsmouth, had a breakfast snack in the car along with all my meds (that’s a major change since 20 years ago! 😂), got on the ferry and had a very smooth crossing. It was six hours so we had a four berth cabin for the two of us and we both snoozed a few times. Had breakfast and lunch on the ferry (tres bien! I tried chia seed pudding for the first time - I will be making it at home now 😊). Unfortunately we had a very long wait at the port, both to get off the ferry and then through customs, and then Mr KK went into tourist mode wanting to go here and there, when I just wanted to get to the supermarket and then the air bnb … the atmosphere did get a bit snippy at that point. However, we got through it all and eventually reached our digs.

The digs are okay. Spotlessly clean and interestingly quirky, but we are next to a restaurant with huge extraction system - no smell (which is impressive) but noisy. The fridge is not cold so we will have to be careful and super prompt with eating things like the cooked chicken, cottage cheese etc and I forgot to pick up any eggs. There’s a 7/11 type shop down the road I might get some eggs in as I promised to go out early and find Mr KK some croissants. He’s still dead to the world, rumbling away, unsurprisingly as he didn’t sleep as well as I did in the boat and did all the driving yesterday.

We do go out for dinner last night as it was late and we were both too tired to face fighting with a strange kitchen. 100 euro straight off the bat. We are going to have to be careful with eating out here! But the quality of the food here, both preprepared and in the markets is superb, even if pricy. We have a cool bag and blocks and a tiny freezer section in the fridge (if it works 🤞) so we can take lunch with us most days 😊

Quiet day planned here, I will get dressed now, find croissants, and hopefully des oeufs, and then we will have a slow start followed by a gentle wander round town with a ceramics exhibition at the cathedral - great start for me as I love ceramics! 😊😂 I will attempt to cook this evening.

I am interested to find that all the French Duolingo work over the past two years has definitely helped. I can read more (in the supermarket, menus etc), speak a bit as pleasantries when doing transactions, ask questions and understand more of the responses. I’m nowhere near fluent - I couldn’t have a proper conversation, but definitely much more at ease in this ‘foreign’ environment 😊

KK

Baileys_Babe

Are you able to adjust the fridge temperature?

Merlin's_Beard

It's so nice when you actually realised how far you've come with a skill!

Glad the crossing was fine and hope you have a lovely time.

f0xh0les

Have a fantastic time. So happy for you. Just enjoy yourselves

KajiKita

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82034261#Comment_82034261

We’ve tried, it’s on 5(!!) overnight but the food is coming out only cool.

Thanks @Merlin's_Beard and @f0xh0les 😊

KK

Watty1

Have a wonderful time away :) And love that the language skills have developed, great proof the effort was worth it

tiddles

Bonnes vacances!

beanielou

Enjoy. 🇫🇷

Humboldt

Fresh croissants for breakfast - delicious! Have a fabulous time away.

Brie

Might be the seals on the door - we had an issue with that on our old fridge. Can you lean a chair against it or something??