It’s now only 4 weeks until our “Big Trip” so it’s back to Nerd Central, list making.

Wash the car. I have no idea why as I am not one for cleaning and polishing my car as a rule but I do like to start a holiday with a clean car. Which really seems daft as I’m going to drive slightly over 1000 miles and if it does not rain the car will be covered in dead bugs for sure. But I still don’t wash it again when I get there even though the site has an Auto Lavage area, (car wash).
So by the same reasoning I suppose I better wash the caravan?

This arrived today.

Our brand new Toll Tag for France. It means less time at toll booths as you don’t have to actually stop. The machinery should detect the tag as you roll up towards the barrier and raises the barrier. You get an invoice in the email a month later and the money is taken by direct debit. There is a monthly charge but that is a maximum of 2 months charge no matter how many months you use it for. Toll charges are exactly the same as you would pay at the machine. So this needs to be fitted to the car.

I’m pretty much decided on the route and now that roaming charges have been scrapped we can use google maps on our phones and use the traffic feature to help make on the go route changes.

Halys wants to give the caravan a deep clean inside before we go and that gives us the chance to make sure we have all the essentials and maybe take out a few of the not so essentials. More room for the booze on the way back.

We intend to pack the van the night before we go. So clothes and any non refrigerated food will go in on Wednesday and I’ll put the fridge on gas to chill, then when we hitch up we will add food and swop over to battery for the drive.
We have always had just a combicool type fridge in the tent and a more normal like fridge is better in the caravan but it’s still only small. In France we tent to shop almost every day, may be just a couple of bits we pick up, some meat or a few veggies for dinner but we really want to shop less if we can, (we do love french shops though) we have kept our combicool and are planning on taking that with us as well. It will be plugged in in the awning and can store drinks etc….. so we essentially double the size of the fridge

So I’m pretty sure we have everything covered now and it’s only a matter of time before the management goes into “Panic Mode” as she starts getting excited and worried that she has forgotten something, it’s at this point that I start reminding her they have shops in France and she does love a good enormous Hypermarket!