Home again !


Phew ! What a journey !

We have just got back from holiday in Britain, followed by the UFM FamConf at Theddingworth in Leicestershire. The conference finished at 11am. A swift cup of tea followed, then down to Dover for the ferry.

The M25 was flowing freely - till we got to the Dartford crossing. Standstill ! More holdups on the M20 for Dover. Then Dover town was gridlocked and we were running dangerously short of time.

As we queued to go through passport control with only about 10 minutes before the ferry was due to leave I looked at the last remaining sheet of instructions I had about Speedferries.com. "Go to the Hoverport" it said. Speedferries.com lets you avoid all the traffic.

EEK ! We were in the wrong terminal !

I had prayed that we would make it, that they would let us on or whatever... Anyway we hurtled slowly to the Hoverport and were told that the ferry was running late ! Ours was not the last car to arrive. There was a little cluster that we recognised from the other terminal ! The crossing was a little rough but not too bad.

Our overnight stay was in Rouen, and because the ferry was late we didn't arrive till midnight but we got off to sleep then enjoyed a hearty breakfast ( brioche, madeira cake, hot chocolate ) before joining the A11, A28, A10 for Bordeaux.

Today is the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR to travel on French roads, because the juilletistes are on their way home in the north and the aoûtiens are on their way south. The A11 was clear, however, except for a little slowness through the beautiful town of Tours. The newly finished A28 ran like a dream except that the satnav doesn't know about it so it has a mad time trying to work out where on earth we are. On the A10, though, we saw a burning Zafira, several breakdowns, some LONG periods of queues for no obvious reason and motorway services that were very busy indeed.

We're glad to be home.

Now then - where's those visitors who are arriving this evening ? The house is a complete TIP. There's bags everywhere. But it's OK. We've borrowed a colleague's house for the night !

Comments

minternational said…
Ah, home again - c'est bon, mais oui? 'Twas good to see y'all last week; good conference, eh?
8:28 pm
Alan said…
I thought so.

I'll pop on some stuff about our time in Britain later.

But not this evening. ( zzzzzzz )
8:31 pm
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