(Drama in France)
As with most holidays to this green and pleasant land avec mes parents, drama ensues. At almost every possible moment someone, somewhere, will be being dramatic in some way, shape, or form. It’s our nature, it’s genetic, and by god is it annoying at times!
The Long Drive – Part 1.
It’s not a short journey to the little commune of Poulhibet in the Cotes du Armor area of Brittany. In fact it’s almost 800 miles. Click here for route
I left work on the Wednesday early, about half one. Cycled home, and finished packing. I gave into a few rounds of AudioSurf – www.audiosurf.com before i left just to chill me out a little. I had much drama with my computer before I left with the stupid thing refusing to make an audio CD and with my electric meter being a swine, meh. I checked my list, it was complete (or so i thought) and i departed for france, via my step brothers house, his workplace and my dad’s house. I left Leeds in a bright mood, getting comfy, enjoying a Mountain Dew and a nice quick CD. Pulled over on my way and filled up the tank of diesel (£1.21 a litre! Thieving bastards!). I arrived at my step-brothers house in Radcliffe around 4:30pm to a fanfare of “Seb!!!” from my 2 yr old niece. We packed the car, setup the in-car-child-entertainment system, namely a system of electrical goods which when combined together would keep the little bugger quiet for the extraordinarily long journey. (As it happens, we didn’t need them as she slept pretty much all of the time. You just have to love behavioural conditioning.)
It soon became apparent while packing the car that I had forgotten two things key to our journey. The ferry tickets and my passport. I left both of them back at my flat in Leeds. Ironically enough neither were on my list either, not entirely sure why, but i blame the laptop and its dodgy backspace key. This meant that we would have to add a minimum of an hour to our journey so that I could pick these up.
We picked my step-brother up from his work at the mental institution and ferried him to my dads house so he could grab his Xbox. We all had a laugh and mock at my selective memory and we began the journey.
Just a few facts and figures and cast to add detail to a complicated backstory. My Dad “C” is married to my step mum “L”. Her son, “D” my step-brother is engaged to my step-sister to be “K” and they have a 2 yr old (going on 3 this holiday) daughter “R”. The planned trip isn’t exactly easy. We were due to depart Manchester at around 6pm to catch the 11:55pm ferry to Calais which would get us in France for 2am. From there we would sleep, and then drive to Poulhibet the next day. The return journey would be spread over two days and would be much easier and more relaxed, again, with the Calais crossing.
We left Manchester just after 5pm. Making our way North to Leeds on the windy and windy (yes, both meanings!) M62 in the rush hour traffic. Moving is an optimistic word to use. We were steadily stationary for most of it. On my way to Manchester i noticed an accident between J23 and J24 on the M62 summit. A lorry had jack-knifed and backed up the motorway for 10 miles. I didn’t think much of it as I was not planning to return this way. Drat. In the stop-start traffic we quickly discovered that K was travel sick and that D had a weak bladder. I played the “Only 10 more minutes to go” game with them for about an hour until we reached my flat. We parked up, they relieved themselves, we had a bit of toast, a quick drink, and chilled for a short while. We were still against the clock. We left the flat after 7 and headed south on the M1.
After a fun little stint with the UK motorway network and a lead right foot we managed to make it to Dover for 11:20pm. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t get on the earlier ferry (apparently this didn’t exist even though it was right in front of us) and we had to wait an hour and a half for the next ferry, which would get us into Calais for just past 4am French time. So we waited, i had a chat with the barista at the Cafe Nero and had myself a nice pint of Mocha with cream. I did my usual thing of chatting to everyone else while I waited and discovered that the two lads adjacent to me in the queue (one German, the other French) have just come back from a month of visiting the UK.
We got onto the ferry without drama and settled in for a long boring trip across the Channel. We arrived slightly late into Calais and thankfully, without drama, got off the other side, onto the motorway and towards our hotel. This is where the otherwise almost perfect trip took a turn for the worse. While trying to check into the hotel I rapidly discovered that the reservation I had made had expired at 4am. This was after 20 minutes of fecking about with K, D and R getting increasingly cranky in the cold wetness of Calais. I then made the bold step of trying the hotel next door, finding out that it was perfectly available, and getting us somewhere warm to sleep (if only for four hours).
We then continued on our journey to the house.
The Long Drive – Part 2
For once, the trip was without drama. Least, anything out of the ordinary. The only problem with travelling with a 2 yr old is the noise. They are generally quite noisy creatures, with this being multiplied exponentially the more of them you have. Thankfully we discovered that a Mc Donalds happy meal puts them right to sleep. I had my usual artery-hardening Big Tasty which was, as expected, both BIG and TASTY.
The trip to Poulhibet would take us through Calais > Honfleur > Caen (Mc Donalds) > St Lo > Dol De Bretagne > St Brieuc > Mur De Bretagne, in that order. Overall not an unpleasant journey. We stopped for ten minutes at the Dol De Bretagne in order to procure a memorable photo for R (I have one with me, aged 7, in front of the menhir at Dol De Bretagne, with my motorcycle helmet).
We arrived at the house around 6pm. It was unfortunately raining, and as we would shortly discover, it would continue raining for quite some time. We were welcomed with hugs, coffee and snacks in the usual family way.
(It occurs to me that I have already forgotten a lot of the details as I am writing this several days later. Needless to say, not a lot happened for a while, but we got here safe and sound!).
I’m on as LinaMishima if you want to audiostalk me 
