Never mind which because either means that the tourist pound is better now than it has been for a couple of years, and the financial pundits reckon that things will become even better in that respect.

Of course, this isn’t just good news for we tourists, it also means that the tour operators and the campsite owners over in Europe will be rejoicing too because that last couple of years has not been too kind to them at all.

Yes, once again it’s nice to be able to go on holiday abroad without having to remortgage your property in order to do so, and let’s all hope things at least stay this way or, even get better.

It also looks as if things are bucking up a little in the wine trade too as our friendly London wine merchant at Chateau Select tells us. Apparently he is selling wine by the case and it’s flying off the shelves. Nice one Bill!

It beggars belief that the weather has turned so ugly so soon after we were all sat around patio tables for the last couple of weekends, and it was warm enough to do so until the sun went down at about 8 pm.

But let’s think of nice things like holidays in the sun, cheap holidays somewhere nice like France where you don’t have to take out a remortgage to afford it. There are some wonderful bargains to be had for camping in France if you look around and book early, especially if you are thinking of going during the summer school holidays.

You really need to book early to go at that time or you could miss out on all of the better camping sites.

Whilst we are on the subject of camping it’s worth mentioning the luxury camping holidays which are on offer from Select Camp, and when we talk about luxury we mean just that! Have you ever heard of tents which have both fully equipped kitchens AND complete bathrooms in them as well? Thought not!

Definitely the Al Fresco living for a couple of weeks has a great appeal, especially if everyone shares in the daily chores like sending the kids to the shops, having a cooking and cleaning rota and things like that because the holiday is meant to be enjoyed by everyone.

These are different from camping holidays, or at least camping in tents, because the caravans or mobile homes offer so much more in terms of home from home living such as proper beds, toilets and showers, and if it’s raining then you are so much more out of the weather than you would be in a tent.

Camping holidays in this country have taken off big style over the past few years, and this can partly be put down to the high cost of living when you go abroad into the Euro zone, but more lately it has to do with the excessively high price of petrol and diesel which has been responsible for putting people off camping in France.

Well we have no objection to that apart from the fact that each and every one of us out here who has a website anything to do with camping holidays will have to re-optimise the whole sodding site to accommodate their stupid whims.

Like everyone else we have called these static caravans mobile homes though why that is beats me because they are far from mobile even though they have wheels. Have you ever seen one being towed? Nor me, and Hell will freeze over before that happens because they are too large to tow. A mobile home can only go on the back of a lorry, one at a time!

All well and good but to get over the Channel you either need to clamber onto Eurostar with your car or find a cheap ferry; something which is easier said than done, but if you are prepared to sail at an unsocial hour you will be able to get one.

Probably the difference has something to do with the types of clients these different entities of the same industry have in that the UK parks are (or certainly were) predominantly blue collar whilst those in France, for instance, were just the opposite.

Two sides of the same coin you may think, and we believe that this still holds true to a certain extent because of all the Brits you see on holiday in France you rarely meet up with the sort who would holiday in Benidorm or a caravan park in Filey. Not being at all snobbish but that’s how it is.

Caravan parks here offer far more daytime and evening entertainment than those across the channel, but that isn’t what we go to France or Italy for. We go there for a peace and quiet holiday where you can pop into the campsite bar for a drink now and then or more often, have a bottle of wine outside your mobile home.

We also think that camping holidays over the channel (all the above is termed as camping) have the great advantage of being much further south and so the weather is usually far better than it is here – unless you get lucky that is.

Our season here in the UK seems to start somewhat earlier than in France as most of the mobile home parks there don’t open until sometime in May, and that is probably early enough for camping holidays anyway.

But the two are totally different as in the UK parks you get virtually none stop entertainment, whilst in France most people make their own enjoyment or pop into the bar later for a drink and some Karaoke. Drinks in French bars are too expensive for most people to frequent them on a regular basis and the price of a pint of beer must be over the €6 mark by now.

To get over there you either need to hop on Eurostar or take a cheap ferry to one of the many northern French ports, but cheap ferries are hard to come by in the holiday season unless you are prepared to sail at an unsocial hour, and then you are left on the other side of the channel all bleary eyed and unfit to drive any distance.

We think that “Staycations” are here to stay big style, or at least until the end of the recession, if that day ever comes, so people are taking more and more holidays at home in the UK than ever before at the cost of the tour operators offering camping holidays in France and elsewhere in the Eurozone.

We have sympathy for them of course because we have ourselves been involved in camping and mobile home holidays abroad for many years now, and we would hate to see the tour operators in that area of business suffer because the holiday season there is short enough anyway without anything else hampering sales.

But if you are going over the channel this summer then why not shop around for a cheap ferry deal instead of accepting just what you are offered in the first place.

You see, these days with fuel costs being so very high it might just pay you to hop on another ferry which will drop you off in France far nearer to where you are actually going. For example, if your holiday is on the west coast of France it could pay to book a ferry which will land you at Cherbourg, Caen or St Malo and save you all that driving and lots of fuel!

These last are really good value, especially if you have a family, and even better if the weather isn’t too good because there is always something to do, always something to keep the kids occupied as well as the adults, and you know as well as I do that if the kids are happy you are sure of a good holiday.

Nearly all of the parks have a large swimming complex – they are complexes these days, not swimming pools, and most of them deserve the term complex because of all the goodies there are in them. Huge water slides and flumes are the order of the day, and these alone are enough to keep the whole family happy!

Being one who favours camping holidays abroad in mobile homes, partly because of the better weather, I have never really got into the UK holiday parks atmosphere and the Hi de Hi type of vacation, but they have become seriously popular, and especially since the cost of holidays abroad has soared. Perhaps it would be a good idea to try one some day soon.

That last could let me in for a batch of irate emails and blog comments, but I’ve been around long enough now to have formed a very thick skin.

It won’t be long now before we have these cretins towing large caravans with underpowered cars, often in the middle lane of the motorway in an effort to overtake another similar cretin with an identical caravan.

Have you noticed how these idiots all wave to each other? They most probably have no idea who the other party is but when following them you can see that the hugely fat mamma in the front passenger seat is waving to the occupants of the car they are overtaking, and a seat full of obese brats in the back wave to their opposite numbers like the buffoons they obviously are.

These people are the most unpopular drivers on the roads both here in the UK and anywhere in Europe, but at least the French have them sussed and when there is a queue of 10 vehicles behind the caravan then the driver has to pull over and let them pass. Non compliance costs an immediate fine of €90.

Thank God that we only take mobile home holidays in France and these mobiles are static caravans rather than the towable sort, but they are wonderful for camping holidays there or anywhere in Europe.

That apart, we have teamed up with a company called Select Camp who operate camping holiday sites all over Europe. This company specialises in luxury camping holidays, and when they say “luxury” they really mean it! They offer normal camping holidays of course where you have a tent with cooking facilities and beds, but where this company scores over their competition is in the luxury sector.

Select Camp offer camping holidays where the tents they supply have fully equipped kitchens AND bathrooms, including shower and everything you would expect in the bathroom of a mobile home.

Now bathrooms in tents is really something else and this must be a first in the camping holiday industry, so we fully expect that in the 2013 holiday season the other large holiday companies will be desperately playing catch up.

The same company (Select Camp) amongst others also offers mobile home or static caravans for hire in France, Italy, Spain and other European countries, and these mobiles are on a par with their tents in terms of luxurious appointments.