Dordogne

Picture this; the year is circa 1980, 2 families, each with 2 children under 5, and one aunt, roped in to being a nanny, get into an old school minibus and make there first foray into France. They struggle with the children all the way down through France and eventually tell them that the French Police (Gendarmes) come to arrest little girls who aren’t asleep by 8pm. The children sleep and awake to the beautiful scenery of the Dordogne. Their destination was the ‘Camping Verte Rive’ campsite nestled next to the river underneath the magnificent village of Domme. What followed was 10 years of camping holidays at the same site, with the same people, on the same ...

Picture a balmy summer lunchtime one mid-June. My mother, my teenage son and myself piled into the car and headed south from Norwich to the chunnel. The journey went well, we even survived the M25, which my mum is terrified of. After a little delay we boarded and soon we were back on French soil. I have to say that after my initial resistance to the idea of travelling underneath the sea, the Eurotunnel has got be one of the best inventions ever, right up there with email. As a child France was a very long way away, but now we get there in a matter of a few hours. At Calais we queued up for buffet trays to eat on the night train, with the obligatory bottle of red ...

We didn't expect to find, in the middle of the Dordogne, near the ancient town of Domme, a French version of 'Fawlty Towers', complete with a Manuel clone and a French Sybil who would have made the original Sybil Fawlty seem cute and cuddly. Lady Luck sent us there. I am unable to say whether she was on our side, for giving us something to laugh about, or against us, as the service was truly lamentable. We arrived tired on a hot afternoon after a long drive. It was badly signposted and eventually we found the postage stamp sized signpost indicating a steep and rutted gravel path to the property. We parked outside reception and heard only a ...