First Time Motorhoming In France

We bought our motorhome in early 2010 as a 25th anniversary present to ourselves and decided to tour the champagne region of France in June. We found a lovely location by a canal and parked up next to several other motorhomes (or camping cars as the French like to call them). Right next to us were a lovely couple from Hull who we hit it off with straight away. We all decided to walk to the next village where there was a champagne festival on and had a great time. When we returned to our motorhomes we decided to have a bbq, we set everything and I got talking in very broken French/English with a local, who was fishing. He had a large net full of fish, which I have since found out were Bream. I offered the angler a bottle of beer, which he gratefully accepted and then insisted on giving me 2 fish for the bbq and this is where it gets interesting.

I walked back to my wife very proud of my catch!! And she said, “what are you going to do with them” “ why cook them of course” I replied “how?” she said. It was at this point that the reality of the situation hit me; I had no idea how to gut and prepare fish let alone cook them! I thought about chucking the fish in the bin but by now a few French fishermen had gathered and they were looking over to see what I was going to do. They were nattering away quite excitedly and I turned to Helen and said they most probably are waiting for me to gut & lightly season the fish before making up some kind of elaborate dressing and then produced a meal of Michel Roux standards! I decided to opt for the old wrap them tightly in silver foil and toss them on the bbq and close the lid quickly option, which seemed to cause more nattering. I then turned my back to the on looking crowd and bbq and pretended that I was in complete control & did not feel any pressure. I started to talk to my now rather sloshed wife and our 2 equally tipsy new friends. During this conversation I started to notice a bit of a din from behind me which was getting progressively louder, I was just about to ask what the noise was when I saw my wife’s face she was staring over my shoulder with a bemused look. “What is it?” I asked”, “The bbq is dancing!!” she replied. Now I know that she had by this point drunk the best part of a bottle of red wine but I didn’t think that she would be hallucinating. I span round to find our bbq galloping across the tabletop!! I quickly opened the lid to find one of the fish had managed to break free of the silver foil and had got halfway across the griddle before expiring and the other had only got as far as getting his head out of his aluminium suit. I could imagine him shouting out encouragement to his companion “run Forest run” only to see Forest (yes I have named the fish now!) fall at the final hurdle. I looked up to see the horror on the faces of the French fishermen. They must have been thinking the English are barbarians and although we French might eat the occasional snail & horse we at least have the decency to kill the poor creature before we cook them. Thank god that we are separated from them by 25 miles of water!

Trying not to look fazed by the goings, on I served the fish up and have to say that despite all that went on it was absolutely disgusting!! There was about 2 spoons full of meat from the 2 fish and this tasted like mud.

So if you ever wonder the next time the French truckers want to barricade the borders, why don’t they like us? I might just have the answer.

Rob.