Friday 5th April - Bayeux 79208

It's been a while since i last updated - mostly down to being busy and not having any data. Arrived in Herouvillette for a couple of nights and ran out of data. No sweat I thought, I will buy another data passport. But no, the Three website was down for hours :-(. I tried again the next day, but it was still down, so I called them up and they stop people spending over a certain amount. Then you have to let them know if you want to go on spending more. I left it, and hoped to get a data SIM for the router. Disaster and Relief. On the night of the 4th, as I say, I was at this lovely little free stop by the side of a river, and Ollie loved it because he's never seen ducks before - he was very interested!!! I decided to take him for the last walk of the day along the river. He again ran up and down the path by the river, very interested in the ducks. Then a big black cat appeared and ran to a fence and up and over. there were also a couple of dogs barking in the gardens that backed onto the path. AND THEN OLLIE WAS GONE!!! It was like bloody magic! I thought that he couldn't have gone far so I continued alone the path calling out his name. I came to the end of the path and turned back, still calling his name and whistling for him. Got back to the van and still no sign, and it was now starting to get dark. I grabbed a torch and went along the path again, then having not found him, I went around to the front of the houses that backed onto the river and began knocking doors. A couple of people said they hadn't seen him and I got no answer from a couple. Then at one house, a man answered the door, and although he couldn't peak English, his daughter obviously studied it at school, and understood what I was trying to say in my grade 5 CSE French. But they hadn't seen him either. I was really starting to panic now, he had just disappeared. Had he fallen in the river? Had someone taken him? Then a car pulled up and a woman got out and went to the house I was just leaving. The daughter must have told her why I'd been there, and she said 'Oui, oui', and mentioned the boulanger which I had walked past earlier in the day. I said merci beaucoup and began to run (despite my bloody cough). I went into the road on which the boulanger was and stopped. I thought I could hear Ollie barking, so I shouted out to him. Then all of a sudden, he was there!!! Oh the relief! I really thought I'd lost him. He was pretty excited to see me too, and I put him on the lead and went back to the van promising myself that that would never happen again. After leaving Herouvillette and a nice little free site with facilities via token available from the local boulanger, I headed for Caen to see if I could get a SIM there, which was difficult with no data (no sat nav), and without the maps I was sure were in the van somewhere, but I arrived to a very busy town with loads of traffic and strange people dressed in outlandish costumes. It turns out that it was carnival day. After failing to get into a car park, I gave up and headed out of town. Then I saw a sign for Bayeux, and as I haven't been there since I was at school, I thought 'that'll do' and headed there. Bayeux That night (4th) I found a free stop. I still had no data and tried to sort out more but no joy, so this morning 5th, I bit the bullet and bought another data passport. I went to the Orange store in Bayeux, and bought a data only SIM for the router, which came with 5 Gb of data, so I will keep that in reserve. I went to Carrefour (expensive), then to the local municipal camp site to stay for the weekend 20 Euros. I will watch some rugby tonight and then The Clash (Bath vs Bristol at Twickenham) is on tomorrow. The site only has WiFi in the TV room, so I will take my laptop and headphones, and some beer and watch it in there. I made an awesome Spag Bol for Ollie and I (watching him eat spaghetti was funny!), then went over to the local Aldi to get some bits I'd forgotten earlier. Semi skimmed pasteurised milk seems quite hard to find in France, so I bought some UHT. I hope it doesn't ruin my tea! The weather is cooler and overcast, but I'm not at work and the Guinness is cold! Saturday 6th - the day of 'The Clash' - Bath vs Bristol at Twickenham. Great match, possibly the best Bath have played all season. All they need to do is do it every time! Consistency is the key. I watched the other match as well. The site has WiFi in their TV room but not over the whole site. I was going to play the match through the TV via my laptop, but it turns out I don't have a display port to HDMI connector. Something else to purchase. After the rugby, I took Ollie for a walk to a bar in town, and then got completely lost for over an hour trying to find may way back to Brian. Still, Ollie enjoyed it! And I don't think I took any photos!!! Sorry!