Home Sweet Home

We are back home, and what a wonderful feeling after a long drive home, and the trauma of Emma and Steve's accident on the way down to Camping Manjastre.

And we were welcomed back by plenty of daddy long leg spiders who had taken up residence in the kitchen and bathroom.   Plus doggy poo on the footpath, which I stepped in of course, and then spread throughout the house.  

The garden is overgrown as always.  There must have been a considerable amount of rain, plus warm days.  Our cultivated blackberry vines are overloaded with fruit.  Delicious.

We had an uneventful trip back, thank goodness.  After Emma and Steve's accident on the way down, they certainly needed a good trip back in order to restore their confidence again.

The traffic was exceedingly heavy on the A7, and again when we turned onto the A9, which is the main highway south to Spain.  We think that people had delayed their holidays south until the Monday in order to avoid Black Saturday, which is changeover day, and when most French people start their holidays.

Once past Montpellier we headed up over the Millau Viaduct on the A75.  A beautiful high motorway, with a stunning bridge over the viaduct.

Our next stop, Clermont-Ferrand, at a Premier Classe hotel, and dinner.  A much needed rest after a long drive.

We drove into the city, but all was closed for the night.  This has happened to us before.  French cities must close down for the night, I think.

The family looking desperately around for a restaurant, but alas we were out of luck.

It was a beautiful church, a Gothic cathedral built of black lava stone in the 13th and 14th centuries, called La Cathedrale de Notre-Dame de l'Assomption.  But sadly no time to explore further.

We drove back to the hotel on a most complicated street system. We could have easily driven down the tramway tracks, and spent our evening trying to get out of a tramway tunnel.  

We ended up in a chain beef restaurant, La Boucherie, where we all ate beef of some sort.  We hoped that it was beef, and of a reasonable quality too.  One never knows in a chain restaurant.  But we were desperate for food, at 10 pm.  Actually it was all quite delicious.

The next day, a lovely smooth drive on a good motorway to Orleans, then across country via Chartres, Dreux and Evreux, to Rouen.  So many roundabouts and trucks, but we kept moving, which was great.  The motorways around Rouen are being changed, a long term project, but we managed to not get lost, thanks to Steve's navigational skills, and were soon on our way to Calais.  By this stage it was raining heavily, with fog on the hill tops.

We ate a tasty meal at McDonalds, which was unexpected really.  Why is McDonalds so much better in France?   And it was there that Emma and Steve realised that their rental car should have been left at some obscure town 60 kms from Calais.  Who knows why, as there were two Avis depots in Calais, but a quick telephone call to the insurance company and we were off to the TGV station in Calais, where they left the car, and a taxi arrived to take them to the ferry.  A very efficient insurance company.

A stunned family group sitting in the ferry lounge after a very long journey.  It turned out to be a rocky ferry ride, unfortunately.  Luckily only for 1 1/4 hours.

Steve's aunt collected Steve, Emma and family from the Port of Dover, and we made our way home, on a deserted A2.

So thankful to arrive home safely and get into our own beds.

We slept soundly.  So soundly.