My goodness! A whole week gone already! Where did the time
go? Well, it went in very long drive; an
overnight ferry crossing and a couple of days of hard work, with a bit shopping
for necessities, washing and ironing filling up the empty spaces. Just in case
you thought we had given up those aspects of daily life!
We left Garstang at about 11 am on Sunday in weather that
pretty much matched our mood – grey and a bit miserable. But we had to get
back. There were things that needed to be seen to; that should have been done
before we left for the UK, so we had to go. Ahead of us lay a day long drive of
about 400 kms. Not far perhaps in South African terms, but given the density of
traffic on the English roads, it was a full six and half hour drive for us in
our heavily laden, underpowered little van. And of course we had to make
allowances for hold-ups along the way. In the end, there were no delays and we
ended up in Portsmouth nearly five hours early for the ferry! Plenty of time to
find a good place to catch a bite. We asked a guard on the dock where to go and
he pointed vaguely and said that there was a ‘good place’ just ‘over there’.
Getting to it by car was another story. A confusion of one-way streets had us
going round and round in circles until we ended up at another place, which was,
of all things, a ‘biker bar’ with ferociously loud music and strange looking customers.
A waitress took pity on us and directed us to the one we were looking for by
telling us to take the subway under a huge intersection and it was just on the
other side. It wasn’t but we could then see it – right next to the parking area
for the ferry port and exactly where the dock worker had said it was!
The next morning, after what seemed like far too few hours
sleep, we were awakened by a discreet chirping on the public address system and
it was still dark when we made our way down to the car deck to leave the
ferry. As we drove off into the very
early morning sunrise, leaving Caen behind us, we could see that it was going
to be a beautiful day. Once away from the city, the motorway became lined on
both sides by vegetation and we were struck by the glorious autumn shades of
the foliage.. Needless to say, my chauffeur was not inclined to slow down for
me to take photographs so quite a few excellent
examples flashed past before I could snap them, but I did manage to get a few
reasonable photographs.
At about morning tea time we found ourselves near the
Poiteau-Charentes where we house-sat a couple of years ago. Having called our
friends first, we found our way to their house and enjoyed a short stop with
them during which plenty of chat was exchanged. Feeling refreshed and
rejuvenated we set off again finally reaching home at about 6.30 pm. We were
quite exhausted and took only our overnight bag out of the car before falling
in to bed for a twelve hour sleep.
The next day, being Tuesday the 1st November, it was hard to
get out of our cosy bed (so what’s new) but we had to find some stocks for the
grocery cupboard. It was almost midday before we got ourselves together so we
lazily decided to leave all that boring stuff until the afternoon but no—one
had warned us that November 1st was a holiday and everything was
closed in the afternoon although they had all been open in the morning! Never
mind. There is always another day. So we went home and unpacked the car
instead.
Among the things that came back with us from the UK was a
pile of carpet tiles which we intended to use to finish the tiling in the small
bedroom. Not a match to the existing ones, at all but a darker shade which
Neels cleverly managed to lay giving the impression of a wall-to-wall carpet
with a darker border and paler centre. Very satisfactory! It also made us
realise what an amazing job Pieter had done when we first moved in and he laid
all the tiles in the rest of the upstairs rooms. Thank you Pieter.
Something that we noticed while we were away from home was
the traffic, or more specifically, the amount of it. French motorways are two
or three lanes in each direction but, except for the immediate environs of the
various cities, there is relatively little traffic. Get to the UK and one is in
for a shock! At times the motorway is four lanes wide in each direction and it
is absolutely packed with cars. It is quite unbelievable! Where is everyone
going? Or where are they all coming from? Endless miles of road covered edge to
edge with cars. It is mind-boggling and made us pleased to be back in France.
It has turned very cold since we returned and tonight, Sunday, is forecast to be -1 degree. That’s cold!
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