BonJour !

Well, I've just returned from a well earned break in France.
I decided to visit some of the D-Day invasion beaches as my father had told me about his exploits as the Allied forces headed inland.
I must say that the beaches today are very nice, peaceful and look very inviting whereas back then it was a different matter.
I remember father telling me how after the heavy naval bombardment had started at around 7am on the morning of Operation Overlord, his batman had woken him and said that he should maybe go for breakfast a bit earlier as there would probably be a lot of people milling about the ship later in the morning.
The first landing craft went ashore a few minutes later and after breakfast, father and a few of his chums decided to go and see what all the fuss was about.
Apparently, they managed to hitch a ride on a little naval craft which had no rest lounge or buffet and was apparently carrying tanks ashore. Anyway, father reckoned that the beaches were crowded by the time they arrived and that as usual, the Germans had grabbed the best bits of beach much earlier that morning by putting barbed wire, mines and anti-tank guns in the way.
Typical.
He said that it was very noisy and his chums had to wait until the Engineers had cleared a path up the beach before they could find a little cafe to enjoy some local hospitality.
However, before they could find a table, some grumpy German decided to fire an 88mm High explosive round through the cafe (probably because the Canadian Infantry had chucked all his barbed wire off the beach) so they had to wait until mid afternoon until the mayor of the local town gave them a bottle of wine. Apparently it wasn't a bad little number but the glasses were rather dirty.
Not much has changed to this day.

After visiting the beaches, I decided to have a look round a local village market. Once there I found a little French chappie selling cheese. I tried a bit and as nice as it was, it was no Stilton. I pointed out that he should come to England as I was sure people would be only too pleased to teach him how to make proper cheese but he didn't seem too keen and suddenly became very red and started to cough and splutter.
Maybe he had a dairy intolerance ?
Anyway, I found a little bakery in town and bought some bread which was lovely. The problem was, when I went to finish it off later that afternoon, it had turned from bread into a lump of seasoned Elm.
I'll bring a nice loaf of Hovis next time.

By the time I'd booked into my hotel, Raggy had caught up and brought all my luggage. He seemed a little tearful and I asked if it was because of visiting the invasion beaches and if it brought the memories flooding back but he said he hadn't been part of the invasion but his youngest son had.
Raggy had stayed at home in England like most of the First World War veterans due to their age.
The food in the hotel was very nice and the wine was good. The waiter got in a little bit of a strop when I asked for a crisp German white wine but he soon calmed down and brought a nice little number called something like 'Nonne Bleue'. It was expensive but well worth it.
It pays to know your wines when abroad....