Sunday 2nd June 2013
Great excitement this morning, today is the day we catch the ferry and start back to Spain. We seem to have been back in the UK for ages, even though we had a great honeymoon covering 24 days during this time.
Firstly and unfortunately Rosie was not ready for collection prior to leaving so we had to change our plans, re-arrange our ferry booking, and travel back in the car, what a good job we bought one!!!
Yesterday evening, being our last in UK for some time we went out to Tarantino’s, A favourite Italian haunt of ours in Brentwood; first it was our last night, but secondly, after a enjoying bottle of Bubbly before leaving the house to celebrate Dave’s new job in Abu Dhabi and Jane getting her last points to qualify for the Regionals in a higher competition; you can imagine a good time was had by all. Thank you Jane for driving this “well oiled” crew back home. Following a night cap we retired, Christine really does need more training in the drinking stakes!!!
Anyway, Sunday Morning, up and-at-em and down for breakfast by 0800hrs ready for the off around 0900hrs. Our ferry booking was for 1400hrs but we knew there was a 1200hrs crossing and if we got there early and there was space available, we may get on it.
A very good run down to Dover, in fact I don’t ever remember any other time that I have driven straight over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, straight through the tool booths and on our way in such a quick time. This is usually a bottle neck but hey it was early-ish on a Sunday Morning. Arriving in Dover with plenty of time, through the usual channels and yes onto the earlier ferry, great.
We arrived in Dunquerque (Dunkirk), we were one of the first off and on our way. Tom Tom got us to the Autoroute and we headed straight for Paris. Before we loaded the car we had this grand plan of re-visiting the Vineyard at Pouilly Sur. Loire to top up on the Pouilly Fume wine we had at our wedding so we booked a hotel in the area, however, we hadn’t loaded the car then and low and behold there was no room, what a surprise!!!!! Anyway hotel booked and credit card details in the system we had to go.
Our trip towards Paris was fine then, bang, we hit the périphérique and we were down to a very slow crawl or stop! We eventually got through and were moaning about the time it took when we saw the queue entering the Périphérique from the South; we stopped moaning and started to feel sorry for them. The queue went on for miles and miles!!!
We finally arrived in the village where Tom Tom guided us to, it was a playing field! The co-ordinates we wee given and entered must have been wrong, so now we put in the actual address and discovered we had another few miles to go.
Arriving at our hotel around 2100hrs, we were pleasantly surprised with our choice. Booking blind on the internet can always be “interesting” but Madam was very friendly, Bella was welcomed with open arms. We showered and went to bed exhausted as it had been a long day plus we had some residue from last night, if you know what I mean!! Looking forward to tomorrow and a nice steady drive to Mike and Catriona’s in St Cloud where we know we can get our shorts on.