How many words can you write before the coffee finishes percolating? A good test..
Currently sheltering from the sun in the south of France making un petit dejuner while the baby is sleeping the morning’s activities off and the wife is wearing the skimpiest of skimpies by the pool. I shouldn’t really be writing this as I’m missing the first sun since yesterday afternoon; the sun-drenched south of France appears to be an illusion unfortunately.
Thunderstorms and drenched decking aside let me relate to you a little of the trip down here, weighing in at a hefty 19 hours door-to-door.
0400 – Margate: We began in the shittiest of shitty hotel rooms (£39 a night for the three of you Rich, what do you expect?) having awoken on what felt like a mattress constructed entirely of dogs. We’d brought a little canvas pop-up travel cot for B to sleep in but what we hadn’t thought about was the fact that she can now sit up unaided and crawl..and the cot is about 9 or 10 inches high. Peering throughout the murky blackness lit partially by the brighter-than-the-sun streetlights outside (the blinds were doing a sterling job but losing badly) I happened to see the cot go totally up on one side, come back down again and watch firstborn go shuffling off into the murk. If it hadn’t been midnight i probably would have laughed my tits off. Anyway, 0400 comes and with it, and the family car laden to the absolute hilt, a trip along the coast to Dover. Glorious Dover, with its majestic cliffs and holy shit a lot of articulated lorries. For once my little family was actually on time, nay EARLY for something, and we boarded the ferry with little drama. The Duty-Free shop, as you can imagine, crammed with smokers getting their Slightly Cheaper Fix, mmm classy. The cafeteria, home of the overpriced and overgreased. The open deck, blustery and full of people gleefully tearing open their newly purchased, Slightly Cheaper Fix. It was almost a delight to get back into the hold.
Driving though Northern France was a delight. Sticking to a nice, calm, comfortable speed we wound our way through Lille, Arras, Bapaume and Compiègne amidst golden fields all the while basking in the radiant glow of our air-con. Driving around Paris was a pig-fuck. Essentially a two-hour traffic jam, I had never encountered anything like it, not even the M25 at its worst as that didn’t have idiot Belgian drivers on it. Seriously, forget the Italians and the Greeks, the most terrifying drivers in Europe are the Belgians. They’ve no idea, they bimble from lane to lane regardless of how finely they cut you up. That’s why their number plates are bright fucking red.
Once firmly away from Paris our next task was to find a supermarket to stock up from. You know, essentials like 24 bottles of Bière Blonde for less than €4, giant bags of crisps with no discernible flavour, and more. The next big town on the road was Orléans, clearly the original New Orleans, CLEARLY facilitating our supermarché needs… So, so wrong. We ended up wandering around the city for a good half an hour following numerous E.Leclerc, Intermarche and Carrefour signage all claiming to be under 3 minutes away, all claiming to be the third turning on the right, before we gave in to the notion that nobody buys any food to eat in Orlèans they simply shuffle around groaning and looking for braaaaains. Frankly, having been so close to Le Mans and having my suggestion we go there to forage, I was overruled because for some reason Tania thought we’d only end up staring at some old racing track.
This was our halfway point, read on for part two next time where we encounter THE SLOWEST ROAD ON EARTH! EXTRAORDINARILY OVERPRICED TOLLS! and THUNDERBOLT & LIGHTNING (very very frightening).