T Stands for Tears and other things.

Hi everyone, I am feeling well and truly back home now having adjusted to the time change - I know it's only an hour difference but being away for a month meant it took little time!

I'm here to celebrate T Stands For Tuesday over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog - The Altered Book Lover so I'll start with my drink.

We started our holiday as we have the last few times we have visited, by called at the Petit Jean boulangerie and cafe in Cherbourg. It's very handy, as from here we just have to go round the roundabout and we are on the main route south. 

We both had Café Crémes to drink

I couldn't resist an apple beignet(basically a doughnut but much less doughy than we have in the UK) I also chose a croissant that we shared with coffee at a bar later.

We drove down so far then took the coast road to Utah Beach.

Our first stop was to the D Day landing memorial - a very quiet place with only one or two people visiting. No birdsong but in the Distance I heard my first Cuckoo of the summer. 

We drove on to Utah Beach - I don't know what I was expecting but I came to realise just how little I knew about the D Day landings during the following few days.

There are lots of commemorative statues but also so much still remaining from the war.

The bar had a lot of items on display

It was hard to imagine this beach was the scene of so many deaths

We had lunch in St Mere Eglise - one of the first towns to be liberated then headed to Omaha Beach.

This was one of the busiest places - there was a museum nearby too

I was looking at this when a lady from America said that could have been her Dad as he had been on the beach himself but that he hardly ever spoke about it, while I was telling her that my own Dad had wished he had been in Normandy but in fact had been in Africa but hardly ever spoke about it - we both had tears in our eyes, as we were speaking  another lady, from the Netherlands, said to us how sad it was, we started a conversation, she said her parents had terrible time doing the occupation of the Netherlands - we all ended up hugging each other while our husbands watched from a distance and then went our way - a moment I won't ever forget! 

We finished our day with a visit to the Overlord Museum - I realised that I had such a poor knowledge of what happened in Normandy in the days around D Day

We headed to our hotel in Bayeux, one we have used before so it was good to be somewhere familiar.

Since became home I have continued to educate myself by reading and watching TV programmes.

I hope you have found this interesting - I will continue with our visit to the English beaches next week if you wish or move on with our visit.

Thanks for looking, Chris