Day 220 - 05/12/19 - Staffordshire, England

We got up early to leave for the tunnel. It was a frosty morning with a beautiful sky. We said "Bye for Now" to John and Iris, and headed on our way back to England.

We arrived for the tunnel in plenty of time and managed to get an earlier train. We were so lucky to get back to England, as we heard on the news about a lot of strikes today over the French pension. Trains and trams were stopped, but luckily we weren’t affected.

We actually had our passports checked for the second time this journey - only England seems to check them.

We arrived back in England in 40 minutes and had a time change again - at least we gained an hour today. We don’t seem to welcome visitors into England as they do in other countries - I may have missed it, but I didn’t see any signs at all saying welcome to England !

We got straight onto the motorway and stopped at the first services for a McDonalds breakfast. Chris used to service kitchen equipment, including McDonalds in his last job, and when he saw an engineer there, he asked who they worked for - as he did, a manager popped his head around the corner as he recognised Chris’ voice - I can’t take him anywhere ! It was lovely for him to see a friendly face as soon as we got back to England.

We headed back to Stoke calling for gas and fuel in the way, and made it just in time to pick our granddaughter up from school. It was lovely to see them all again and give them all a big hug 🤗

We had tea with Ash, Kirsty and Izzy and then went to our ‘regular’ pub, where we could stay overnight on their car park. No one knew we were back in England, and they were so surpised to see us, doing a double take and rushing to gave us an amazing welcome.

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