Day 50. Sunday 9th August. From camping in Fourmies to Camping Bouscarel, Calais. France.

A typical Saturday night, camping and sleep deprivation wise. As Jen mentioned, the singer kept belting out old American songs till after 11pm and then at god knows what hour, a domestic broke out not far away, with both partners screaming at each other and the children wailing, before herself, dissolved into tears..:) Mind you, my encouragement in the form of “shut up you retards” probably didn’t help…:)

Consequently it was 8am before I could wake up, this morning, which meant an 11 am start. But of what concern! We have only around 240k’s to reach Calais, or a camp site not far from.    

Before leaving the camp Jen booked us on the 2.20pm ferry to Dover.

It’s WW1 remembrance time.

We are in the northern part of France. So that means endless war graves and memorials. We are also on minor roads and Poki likes it that way. Idling along in 5th gear, dealing with all conditions. 

It’s Sunday too, which means the population are not going to work. The roads are relatively empty. The population are visiting relatives and enjoying the weekend in the way every country should. Socialising, relaxing or interacting with family?

A stop on the way at one of the supermarkets, which opens during very restricted times, to purchase some treats for the days and weeks ahead. 

Back to the War Memorials. 

Here are some photos that can’t really do justice to the scale of the size of some of these grave sites nor the consideration that there are so many of them.

The first grave sites we came across was for the Canadians. Approx. 630,000 Canadians enlisted to serve in WW1 of which approx 66,000 lost their lives and a further 172,000 were injured. The population of Canada at that time, approx 8million.

Ai tells me that 11million German soldiers were mobilised on all fronts in WW1, with approx 1.6 to 1.8million killed,

and approx. 60+% of those on the Western Front. A German only grave site. The individual graves marked appropriately, by an iron cross.

Then the Polish above, and Czechoslovakian’s below, who fought and died for, and with France. I note the soldier below, was killed in WW2.

And then the French who served and died for their country. Approx. 8.8million served and 1.3million died. Is it any wonder the French did not want to repeat the catastrophe in WW2?

So, a rather sobering insight into the results of belligerent, autocratic leaders, of which we have our share right now. Little learned.

Forgive the rather gloomy tone of today’s blog entry but it does not do any harm to remember the sacrifices made. I have covered the British and other colonial countries cemeteries, in last year’s visit to France.

Tonight’s camp.

While en route to Calais, Jen had identified a suitable camp. Basic and small, however when we arrived, they were full, complet! As was the next one the sat-nav identified nearby, but third time lucky. We are 17k’s from the Calais docks and we are nicely placed to be in line by 1pm tomorrow.

Oh! I thought I would take a photo of the tiny part that is the difference between us moving, or not. The watch, (with broken strap), is there to give scale. Wrapped in tape to keep the three components from further damage and ease of use.

Views: 54