Who doesn’t enjoy the excitement of getting up at 5am to head off on their bonne vacance? No? I imagine that my wife is quite alone in this habit. The early rising, panic syndrome that covers all eventualities from asteroid storm to a proletariat uprising on the A13. On this occasion, unlike the ‘6 hours early for a flight’ occasion that happens every single time we fly anywhere, I was glad of the spare hours (I lie, minutes) that I had available to mince about.
First hiccup, getting my bike onto the car. This took a frustrating amount of time, fumbling in the dark. I don’t think I need continue with the analogy, but I think you will know the sense of relief when that task is complete.
Second hiccup, getting the car to change gear. An automatic, it decided not to change gear for a whole 7 miles. That was petrol well burnt.
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| If only cars could run on burning money. Oh they do! |
Third hiccup, the brake light fell out of its housing. I had spares. The spares did not fit. I bought an assortment of universal fitting lights from the AA shop at the Channel Tunnel check in village. I say village as that is what it is. The most expensive village on the planet. A place for holiday makers to panic buy shit that they really didn’t need to panic about, handing over their holiday ‘spends’ before their holiday has even started to grinning villagers (shop managers) on a commission.
Fourth hiccup, wasn’t really a hiccup because it was both uncovered and covered by the purchase of the universal fittings bulb set. The rear night light had also decided France was not somewhere it cared for and gave up its little tungsten life.
All this before 9am. For a generally incapable male, especially around les voitures (see what I did there?) this was quite a series of mini obstacles, a bit like a pre-holiday steeple chase.
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| An opportunity to show small dogs doing a steeple chase. This has nothing to do with anything. |
We can skip the travel under the channel as that was remarkably brief due to my exertions on the rear nearside of my car (I know! I didn’t know I knew that either!).
Other side. Weather shitter than a bad year at Glastonbury. I have never driven through such rain in my life. Ever.
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| This wasn't us. But at times we thought it could have been. I may be exaggerating a little here. I might not be. What a conundrum eh?! |
Thanks to the culinary travels of Messieurs Stein, Floyd, Oliver, Carluccio, Genaro and Harriot, well perhaps not the last one….. where was I? Oh yes, thanks to their beguiling programmes taunting us with haute cuisine from every European roadside, when you pull into a Shell garage with the French equivalent to a Wild Bean Café (Le Bean de Wilde Café) you somehow expect the baguette with local ham, fromage du motorway and tomate des gasoline to taste exquisite. Alas no. As we sat in our car, the pissing rain dribbling down our faces from the mad dash to the loo, we munched on bolognaise flavoured crisps as we pulled lengths of ham fat from our baguettes long and strong enough to lasso an entire herd of bison. The glamour of the holiday had not quite engaged at this moment. Oh and by the way, we moan about petrol prices in the UK, my God the French are being punished a la voiture.
France is also ‘big country’ that or my wife/me is/are woeful at judging distance. I will not touch upon this or her map reading again as this will only smack of chauvinism, bitterness, and quite frankly a dull occurrence between couples the globe over.
We arrived at our first stop. The hotel Pavillon de Gouffern.
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