The nasty frontal system, that everyone had been warning us about, died. It fizzled out overnight, with just a little cloud and rain, and we wake up to good weather. Fantastic! We get a taxi back to the airport, hoping to fly to Charleville for lunch, since we hadn't been able to get in there on the way south. Then we should make Le Touquet by the evening. But according to the TAFs, Charleville has low cloud and mist.
A and C phone us from Charleville, where they'd stopped overnight, to say not to come, they're socked in. Since we'd been ever so slightly jealous of the pace of their faster aircraft, we feel ever so slightly...smug, perhaps, since we can get airborne and they can't. Anyway, we obviously aren't destined to go to Charleville this trip, so we start looking for another lunchtime stop. Since we don't want to go back to Reims (we're new airfield collectors), Peronne seems like the best place. Saarbrucken arranges weather information, files our flight plan, and gives us NOTAMs. In fact, it all happens automatically, and the correct NOTAMs appear as if by magic after we've filed our flight plan. Now why can't we organise a NOTAM system like that over here?
We take off, and once we cross the border, Saarbrucken Approach passes us on to Reims. In true French fashion, Reims gets rid of us as soon as possible, passing us on to Paris, who don 't reply. We don't need a chart to know that we're back in France again. Anyway, there are few restricted areas between us and Peronne, so it's manageable. B does the radio for Peronne, which is a small airfield where you need to speak French, and hers is better than mine, though I can manage downwind (vent arriere) and final (finale) by now. We land, and the next thing we know there are skydivers landing all around us!!!! We shut down quickly, then get told by a young French Canadian chap that it's OK to taxi; the parachutists know we're there!!! No-one seems in the least concerned about everyone using the airfield all together except us. Anyway, we chat to the French Canadian, whose comments about the disorganisation of flying in France are unprintable. He also tells us that you can't rely on the FIS you're talking to to tell you about the restricted area activity; you have to actually ask them. He'd fallen foul of that, and been intercepted by two Mustangs. So now you know, those of you who say it's all easy.
We can't get any lunch, but we have coffee, some of our emergency muesli bars, and a break. And we get fuel for KF - the main purpose for stopping really. We are in the middle of nowhere, just the airfield, a few aircraft, lots of skydivers, and fields with haymaking. Pretty place though, and very friendly. We then set off for Le Touquet, flying along the Somme, arriving there late afternoon. The airfield finds us a taxi and a hotel, and we enjoy being back in the land of fantastic food. We hope to return to the UK tomorrow, but have checked the weather, and think we may be stuck here for a day. It's a nice place to be stuck, so we don't really mind.
More later.