A Scattering, A Sobering and on to Switzerland

Somewhat bizarrely for our journey to the Dover/Dunkerque ferry we head north.  To Malvern as it happens where Heather’s Auntie Ann’s ashes are to be scattered on the Malvern Hills where she grew up and at the same spot where her sister Peggy’s ashes (Heather’s mother) were scattered.  Equally bizarre was the event.  Her sons David and Martin had custody of the ashes which turned out to be in a cracked plastic pot in an undignified scruffy paper bag.  I think she might have seen the funny side of it.  So, the leaky pot meant that at the designated spot Ann, or a bit of her had unceremoniously dribbled down Martin’s leg.  I found out later that a bit of her had also ended up on the floor of the lift in the Premier Inn.

The scattering was bounded by a very enjoyable family and friends dinner the evening before and the following day by the start of David and Martin’s sponsored walk between Malvern (their Mother’s home town) and Measham (their Father’s home town).  The walk had been “organised” by David (my quotes).  Now, David is a really nice successful guy with a great personality but his expertise is not in the area of organising walks.  About 15 of us turned up at the Premier Inn, the same one where some of Ann is to spend eternity going up and down in the lift, in order to walk to Worcester, about 10 miles or so away.  It turned out that David’s plan was a downloaded walk off the internet in the opposite direction, from Worcester to Great Malvern Station (about three miles away from where we were) with the only map being a 5 inch square with a red line on it.  I had an Ordnance Survey map for part of the distance and my trusty compass so one of David’s friends and I decided that a coup was in order.  My OS map was flourished and with a few diversions we got to the edge of the map reasonably well.  Heather got an OS map up on my phone and that took us the rest of the way to Worcester Cathedral.   David and Martin had another 65 miles or so to get to Measham and do not have a map.

Two days later we’re at our first French campsite of the trip in our van at Seraucourt-le-Grand.  Grand is an exaggeration, or if not I want to see Petit.  It’s one of those bucolic nondescript peaceful French villages.  They always seem more remote and self-sufficient in a way than English villages aren’t, where I always imagine people drive off to work in the local big town.  It clearly wasn’t peaceful a century ago, here in the valley of the Somme because a short walk from our site is the British Cemetery, not for those expat retirees who’ve upped sticks and come to France but a small (compared to some) First World War Cemetery.  They are always immensely sobering places.  This one was sitting on an elevated site bathed in early summer sunshine and as always, kept immaculately by the War Graves Commission.  There were about 1200 gravestones set out in lines of ten (platoon size, I think), about half of which were just inscribed A Soldier of The Great War, so you just have to imagine the condition of the bodies being buried, Some of the gravestones mentioned a Regiment, some that the soldier was an officer and a very large proportion of those named were between 18 and 25.  At least they weren’t in rank order but were quite literally all in it together.   I believe the War Graves Commission employ local people to maintain these cemeteries, wherever they are in the world and while I don’t know, I wonder how the German War Graves are looked after.  After all they would have been similar ages and someone’s son or husband or father.  Sobering indeed.

Why is it that Ferry and Airport so-called Duty Free Shops are the only places it’s possible to buy those giant Toblerones so that if you were minded to render a fully grown Moose senseless with a chocolate product, you could do so.  It was Billy Connelly who said that it would have to be the Swiss who invented a chocolate bar that was painful to eat.

We’ve made our way to the edge of the Jura, the range of hills on the French/Swiss border that just undulate and happen to be as far above sea level as anything in England.  This is very pretty countryside and we decide to spend a couple of days at Besancon, originally settled by the Romans and set on a huge meander in the River Doubs.  We catch the very pleasant and new tram from near our campsite and head into town.  A nice touch on this 18 month old system is that much of the trackbed is grassed with the tracks running just lower than the turf so that instead of a hard surface, the line is somewhat meadow-like.  Of course once into the town the track is along roads and therefore on tarmac.  At the southern end of the river’s loop the land rises sharply to the Citadel, which is situated in a commanding defensive location.   Just before this is reached is the Cathedral with the road approaching it passing through a second century Roman gate, still standing but with the many decorative carvings badly eroded.  Well, they have been there for nearly two thousand years.  We’ve kept to the old town because greater Besancon like many French towns and cities seems to be composed of dozens upon dozens of ugly tower blocks.  The centre however is a delight, aided by the warm sunshine.

One of the local rivers, a feeder to the Rhine is the Saone, a name incorporated in a local music festival in a way dear to my heart.  It’s called The Rolling Saone Festival.

We’re always very happy to visit France but this time it is merely a passage through to Switzerland and onwards to Italy, although it’ll probably be a fortnight before we cross the Alps and get to the Italian Lakes.  The French/Swiss border is marked but we sail straight through because there are no customs or passport checks.  Just like all the EU countries, Switzerland, Norway and other trading partners who want the trade deals have to accept open borders and EU Regulations.  Despite what many people think, we don’t have open borders, that’s why we have customs and passport checks whenever we cross the channel.  What we do have is free movement of EU Nationals.

So here we are in Switzerland for our first holiday here since the late 1970s.