If you recall, the plan for our December visit to London was:

• We (Lisa and I) travel to London on Thursday for the TweetDeck Christmas party
• Rosie & Molly stay with Claire & Tony in Puy-de-Serre
• Joe stays with Kevin & Amal, also in Puy-de-Serre
• We return to France on the Saturday, collect the kids and go home
• We all return to the UK for Christmas with the family the following Tuesday

And back in A Christmas Party, Some Old Friends and Some Angry Birds, we covered the first couple of days when things were going well. When we were happy. And warm.

So let us continue with our story.

So near, yet so far

We woke on the Saturday after a fantastic few days in London, and headed back to Stansted Airport. There were no problems on the trains, so we arrived in plenty of time. However, given the wintry conditions, we were not surprised to find that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Still, this was not a problem. We were heading home to find our kids – we could wait another half an hour. While waiting at the gate, the day’s first few flakes of snow started to fall. Still we remained upbeat, as planes were still taking off and it was really only a few flakes.

Before too long we were boarding the plane and took our seats, excited to be heading home and looking forward to getting back to the children. The snow had started to come down a little faster, but we were moving now, so all was well. We started taxiing down the runway and waited for the pilot to announce “Cabin Crew, seats for takeoff”…. But instead of that announcement followed by the plane shooting off into the sky, we came to a halt. Instantly we knew this was Something Very Bad. The cabin crew started faffing around, while we grew more and more agitated. Then came the announcement we had dreaded. “I’m sorry folks, we have been told by Dublin to return to stand.”

The entire plane groaned in frustration. We had been so close! Just another few seconds and we would have been in the air and on our way back to our kids. But now we were looking at a cancelled flight, and no idea what was going to happen next. This was our worst nightmare.

Having disembarked the plane, we all sadly traipsed back to the airport main concourse, where we joined the queue to speak to the Ryanair sales desk about getting a refund for  our cancelled flight, and rearranging another. When we joined the queue there was already about 300 people waiting in front of us. This was not going to be a quick process.

A long wait and a thoughtless Italian

In the queue directly in front of us was an Italian chap with his young daughter. The man was clearly looking out for his wife, and kept leaving his little girl, no more than 3 or 4 years old, in the queue while he disappeared with his phone clamped to his ear.

The girl was very sweet, and we kept ushering her along when the queue started moving, but the time between her father’s visits was getting longer and longer. Everyone in the vicinity was amazed that the man could leave such a young girl completely on her own for such long periods of time. In the end, the party in front of the girl stopped a passing policewoman and reported the situation. She took the girl to one side and things could well have escalated if the absent father had not returned at that point. After some very stern words from the policewoman, the girl and her father were reunited. Although he didn’t leave her again, the man was still very distracted, and could very easily have lost his daughter again as the queue moved along without her. We were really quite shocked how much disregard he showed for her safety.

Also in the queue near us were a young couple who were heading in our direction. Quite remarkably, they were heading to Fontenay-le-Comte (the nearest large town to where we live in France)! We had a good chat with them and discovered that they were heading back to see relatives who ran a bar on Rue des Loges – it certainly is a small world.

So, we waited in line for what seemed like an eternity, and got basically nowhere. Through phone calls and internet searches, we established that all Ryanair and Easyjet flights were cancelled, with no prospect of  replacement flights for at least another two days. Word eventually filtered through the queue that we were pretty much wasting our time. The staff at the desk were only handing out a printout from the Ryanair website giving instructions to claim a refund and to rebook online. So, we needed a new plan. There was no way we could just sit and wait for goodness-only-knows-how-long for another flight. The kids were waiting for us at home and we were booked on flights to come back again on Tuesday. This was not in The Plan.

A new plan

We made some calls. When we left the Dixies the night before they had said to get in touch if there were any difficulties with the journey. So we called Kevin, who got straight on the case, finding us details of trains, buses and even booking us a hotel in London for the night. What a superstar! It seemed that trains were going to be no good. Although the Stansted Express was still running at this point, very few trains south of London were still operating, so our chances of getting out that way were minimal. Kevin had offered for us to take their car and drive it home, but the snow was so back near them that we would never have got there, never mind been able to drive it out again. So, with all flights cancelled, we followed the lead of our Fontenay-bound friends and turned to National Express coaches for a solution.

The queue at the National Express booking office at the airport was huge, with everyone having the same idea, so I grabbed the phone number off a leaflet and called them instead. Luckily we managed to book ourselves onto a coach leaving Victoria first thing in the morning and arriving in Paris around 4pm. From there we could catch a train to Poitiers to pick up the car and get home. Apparently they were unaffected by the snow so far, so we kept our fingers crossed that this would remain the case until tomorrow. With a hotel booked for us by our guardian angel in Ware, we headed off to the train to get back into London and find somewhere to eat and sleep for the night.

Back to where we started

Sadly, this too was not destined to go well. Our train was late. But not “It’s going to be REALLY late” late, where we could have gone and got comfortable somewhere while we waited. Oh no, it was just constantly 40 minutes late. Every minute we waited, the expected arrival time progressed by a minute. So we never had a clue quite when it was going to arrive, if at all.

After three hours of standing on a frozen platform, open to the elements, without food and with just one coffee inside us from the passing refreshment trolley, finally a train arrived. I have never been more glad to see a Stansted Express train in my life! Like eager shoppers at the Boxing Day sales, the crowd swelled toward the train and poured inside. I charged on board, dragging Lisa behind me, determined that we were going to get a seat after standing for the last six hours or so.

Our insistence paid off and we were one of the lucky few who got a seat. People were literally crammed into the train like refugees, their suitcases and bags piled high in the gangway. Although we were packed in like sardines, at least we were warmer and more comfortable than before. However, we were not our of the woods just yet. Although we were on the train, we were not actually going anywhere. It was 6.30pm by now, but we were told that our train had just become the 7pm service – so we had to wait another 30 minutes before we could leave. By this point we had just about given up caring.

Eventually, to much cheering, we pulled out of the station and headed back to London, from where we had started our journey that morning. It was certainly an eventful journey (of course, it was never going to be boring!). After a while, a Scottish guy, clearly with a few too many Special Brews inside him, started kicking off. He was yelling at some poor chap who he claimed was Russian – we have no idea if he was or wasn’t, but the drunk guy was pretty insistent. Given the fact that the train was completely overcrowded, this was really very intimidating. Luckily a couple of American guys pinned him into a tight corner of the train and forced him to calm down, but his ongoing outbursts certainly dampened the Dunkirk Spirit that had developed on the train until that point. Fortunately the Scottish man left the train at the next stop and a calm returned to the carriage once more.

Meanwhile, we were being entertained by a young brother and sister who were travelling with their french grandparents. We started speaking in french, but then realised the kids spoke english, which made life a lot easier. They were both very sweet and the girl didn’t stop talking all through the journey. I think talking to us helped all of us to take out minds off the situation and it was some welcome light relief after a very stressful few hours.

Tom to the rescue

It was while were on this journey that we finally had a stroke of good luck. I had a call from Tom, a colleague from work and a good friend, offering us a place to stay for the night. We didn’t need asking twice. Given the day we were having, the chance of a warm house, a glass of wine, a nice meal and some top company was very welcome. So we jumped off the train at the next stop and made our way to Tom’s house. I say that like it was an easy process – of course it wasn’t. It involved lugging our bags through the snowy London streets and navigating the brand-new East London line, a stretch of the rail network I had never used before. But made it we did, and good old Tom was there at the station to meet us. To say that we were thankful for the hospitality that he and Jessie showed us, would be like saying the Pope is a bit religious. We were so delighted to be safe and actually feeling relaxed for the first time that day. It was a brief few hours of chilled out, relaxing chat, with a big glass of wine and a great homemade curry. Just what we needed and a total lifesaver.

While enjoying our respite with Tom and Jessie, we decided to book our train from Paris to Poitiers, as there were likely to be thousands of stranded people pouring into Paris the next day and we didn’t want to get stuck there too. So, after some wrangling with an uncooperative printer, we managed to book our ticket and print off the required e-voucher. At least that was sorted, we just needed to get to Paris.

Paris, here we come

At 5.30am we were whisked by taxi off to Victoria station to locate our coach. Having clambered over the scattered bodies of people who had clearly slept the night in the coach station, we checked in successfully and waited for our coach. However the first worry of the day came soon after when there was an announcement that all National Express coaches were cancelled. Our hearts sank and we thought that we were going to face another day stuck in London, unable to get back to the kids (who were, incidentally, being very well looked after by our friends, thank goodness. This knowledge, however, didn’t stop us being desperate to get back to them…).  We soon realised that actually we were going to be travelling under the Eurolines banner, which was a slightly different thing and was therefore not affected by the cancellation. Panic over!

While waiting for the coach to arrive, who should we see but the couple from the airport who were trying to get back to Fontenay! They had booked on the same coach as us and had the same plan – get to Paris and then take a train. We offered them a lift with us if they wanted to get the same train from Paris to Poitiers, but they had already booked accommodation in Paris for the night. It was good to see them again though and made it feel a little less painful seeing some familiar faces.

The journey to Folkestone was largely uneventful, thank goodness. The roads were mainly clear, though there was a lot of snow on the verges, and we arrived at the tunnel in good time. We were delayed for an hour, but took this opportunity to stretch our legs and grab some reading material and food from the shops. Before long we were on our way and heading to the tunnel. Just as we thought we were finally going to get out of England, we were pulled in by French customs who boarded the coach and took all our passports. Half an hour later they returned and handed back the passports. Quite what they were doing with them all this time we do not know.

What we do know is that while we were sitting there waiting, about 10 eastern european coaches breezed past unhindered. Something not right there.
Anyway, we eventually made it onto the Eurotunnel train and finally felt like we were getting somewhere. Once we got into France, surely everything would be fine and we could get home to our kids. Of course, that would have been too easy.

Welcome to Calais

The weather in Calais wasn’t great, with a fair bit of snow around, but no worse than we had experienced in England. We left the tunnel behind and were looking forward to a nice easy drive down to Paris, when suddenly we pulled into a petrol station just before joining the autoroute to Calais. Utter, utter disaster. Because of the supposedly-dangerous weather, the police were not allowing us to continue on our journey. We would be taken to a local sports hall where we would spend the night and we could possibly try again in the morning.

This news nearly sparked a riot on the coach. The weather was nothing worse than we had seen on the road to Folkestone, but the police weren’t budging. They had even parked their car across the front of the coach to ensure we couldn’t leave. An air of total depression fell over everyone on board. I pulled out the iPhone and started looking at options. If only we could get to the station at Calais, we could catch a train from there to Paris. Or even to Lille, then on to Nantes from there. We just had to keep moving, to get closer to the children, there was no way we wanted to just stop and wait.

But sadly the police were not going to be swayed. We were to be escorted to the sports hall and that was that. The fact that dozens of other vehicles were zooming past while we were stuck at the side o the road was seemingly immaterial to them, unfortunately. So eventually we pulled out behind our police escort and headed to the sports hall feeling totally dejected. Our low spirits were not raised at all by us being able to see the train station as we drove away from our parking spot. If only we could divert there, we could all get on our way, but it was not to be.

The Red Cross? Really?

On arrival at the sports hall, we started to feel like we were unwitting victims of a terrible disaster. A man climbed aboard the coach and declared, “Welcome to Calais. You are now under the control of the French Red Cross. We have food, drink and blankets for you and beds for the night. We will look after you…”. Now you might think we would be relieved at this, and indeed we would have been if we had not been desperate to get back to our kids. Such great care would have been very welcome if we were just travelling for fun and not on a race against time. As it was, this was the last thing we wanted. But, not really knowing at this point what was going to happen, we disembarked the coach and shuffled into the sports hall rather dazed and confused.

Once inside, the stresses of the day started to take their toll. We both started to break down a little and making the phone call to the kids to tell then what had happened was a very difficult thing to do. When speaking to Rosie I told her that we were being treated like we had been in an earthquake. She hadn’t heard me properly and proceeded to tell everyone that we had been in an earthquake. After some very worried phone calls, we managed to persuade everyone that we were safe and well and hadn’t actually been victims of a natural disaster, just the over-efficiency o the French authorities!

Seeing Lisa in some distress, one of the Red Cross people came over and offered us somewhere quiet to go and lie down. They were very considerate and we couldn’t have asked for better treatment, but we explained that we really only wanted to get home to our kids. He said he understood and that he would see what he could do to help. a short while later he returned to explain that he had spoken to a man with a taxi firm and he would take us to the station at Calais, from where we could catch a train into Paris and from there to home. We were delighted to be offered a way out. There had been a couple of shuttle buses going to the station earlier on, but the weather was now very bad and our man told us that ours would be the last taxi to leave before the weather closed in.

So we were suddenly feeling a lot more positive, but we now had a different problem. We had, as instructed, left our suitcases on the coach. Having been out into the car park I could find neither our coach nor our driver anywhere. After some 15 minutes of searching, I finally tracked him down. Luckily he was already on his way to find the coach and retrieve a bag for another man, so I tagged along too. The coach was inexplicably parked about 25 minutes up the road, so the walk there through the snow was far from ideal. But we made it through and I dragged our bags back. Good job I did as well, as the driver then refused to go and fetch any more bags after that, so everyone else was definitely stranded.

Time for a new plan

Given the delays on trains heading into Paris, we changed our plan of attack. We would try to get from Calais to Lille, then from Lille we could catch a train to Nantes. We rang our good friend Curtis, who had offered his assistance, and he was an absolute hero. He said that of course he would pick us up from Nantes and take us home, no matter what time of the day or night, and then would take us back to Poitiers in the morning to retrieve the car. We were so, so grateful, and this wonderful news really lifted our spirits – we could finally see an end in sight.

After a while our taxi came and we escaped our well-meaning imprisonment. Upon arrival at the station, we were quite surprised not to see huge crowds of people. One of the reasons we were given for not being allowed to go to the station in the first place was that apparently there were huge crowds there, and all the trains were cancelled. No such crowds at Calais Ville station. It was about 5pm when we arrived and had to wait about 2 hours, but eventually a train came and took us to Lille. After facing the prospect of spending maybe the next two days in Calais only just a few hours ago, the sense of relief to be leaving was immense even more so as the weather was now really closing in around us.

A long time in Lille

Having arrived in Lille, we discovered that our connecting train departed from the other station in Lille. It wasn’t too far to walk, only 10 minutes, but the weather was terrible, with temperatures of about -10 and a strong icy wind stinging our faces. Although that 10-minute walk nearly gave us frostbite, we kept moving, confident that we were getting closer and closer to home. The departure board at Lille Europe station was a sea of delays and cancellations, though the Nantes train wasn’t yet being displayed, so we had no idea of it’s status. When eventually it appeared on the board, our positive attitude took another knock – delayed by three hours.

Ah well, we thought, at least we’re near civilisation. This is a station, there are cafés and bars. We can sit and have a meal while we’re waiting…

If only it were so simple! Everything was closing. We found a bar that was packed – so many people were stranded this night and the station, like most I would imagine, was full of travellers all just trying to keep warm while they waited for a way home. So did this result in longer opening or “special measures’? Not on your nelly. We had just managed to buy a glass of wine each and a small tub of Pringles, the only food they had in the entire bar, when the staff started closing up around us. That was that, we were thrown back out onto the frozen platform to wait for the next two hours.The only consolation was the vertical patio heaters they had on the platform, which provided a tiny amount of heat to help keep the cold from totally killing us off.

In the end, after much shivering and “never again”ing, our train arrived at around 11pm. Poor Curtis, it would be about 3am when we arrived in Nantes, but he was an absolute star. The journey to Nantes passed without any real problems. We slept a lot of the way, totally exhausted, frozen to the core and just aching to be back in our own bed.

Curtis, our saviour

True to his word, Curtis was there at Nantes waiting for us with hot tea, blankets and food. We really are so indebted to him for his assistance, which was way beyond the call of duty. In fact all our friends had been outstanding in their support. Kevin and Amal and Claire and Tony had been superb in looking after the kids for us and the extended stay was no bother to them at all. Everyone on Facebook and Twitter were pouring out their best wishes or us as we kept everyone updated on our progress. It was a very humbling experience for us all to see the reaction to our plight, and we felt very, very lucky to have such amazing friends.

And so, eventually, after having left our London hotel almost 48 hours earlier, we finally arrived home safe and sound at 5am and collapsed into bed.  The journey, like this post, had been truly epic. So many ups and downs, twists and turns, that we had lost track of where we were and what we were doing. But one instinct kept pulling us through, and that was the need to get home to be with our kids. And the reunion with them the next morning was very special indeed.

The end…almost

As a postscript to all this, you will recall that our car was still parked at Poitiers. So, as promised, Curtis came by later on to take me back to the airport to retrieve it. The only difficulty being that I couldn’t find the car park ticket. This was very unlike me, as I am normally very organised about such things and store all tickets and receipts safely in my wallet. but this one ticket was definitely not there. I eventually managed to recall that for some reason I had left it in the back pocket of my jeans. The very jeans that Claire had taken earlier that day, along with a load more dirty clothes from our trip, to help us get caught up on the washing. So yes, you guessed it. The ticket had been though the washing machine.

“It’s ok,” said Claire, “the magnetic strip is still on one piece.”

I assumed this meant that it was still attached to a piece o the ticket. I was wrong! On the way to the airport we called at Claire’s and she handed me an envelope containing what can only be described as a few flakes of card, plus the magnetic strip. this was going to be fun…

Anyway, we took the pieces along to the airport and the man there listened to my sob story about what had happened. Luckily he took pity on me and issued a new ticket, allowing me to take the car and head home again.

And so ends the tale of our nightmare journey home. Our French Odyssey.

Thanks once again to our guardian angels who helped us along the way –  Kevin, Tom, Jessie, Curtis, Kevin, Amal, Claire, Tony and everyone else who helped guide us home to safety. We couldn’t have done it without them all and we will always be grateful or what they did for us.

Although we always know we had the best family and friends, it is often only when you are really at your lowest that you realise it.

And for us now, there is no doubt.

Anyway, that was my week. Meanwhile, Lisa wasn’t having much fun either, as everything seemed to be going wrong at home.

First off, the washing line broke. The washing line that was full of nice  clean washing. And of course it fell to the ground and blew around in the mud for a while, ensuring that everything needed rewashing! And how typical of it to happen the moment I am out of the house. The nail upon which the line was hooked had probably been secured in the wall for the last 50 years. Yet on this day it chose to ping out of the wall like a cork from a bottle, as if it had only been stuck there with blu-tack five minutes ago. Not a good start for Lisa.

Then, on Friday morning, the car wouldn’t start. My lovely little Renault Clio “Chippy” (no idea why it’s called that, but it is…) which has served us so well over the last year and has always started first time was as dead as Roland the rat [who?]. As our main car was parked at Nantes airport where I had left it for the week, this was, to say the least, rather inconvenient. Luckily we have some great friends who stepped in to save the day. Peter answered the cry for help and came round to pick the girls up and take them to college, while Nathalie picked up Joe, ensuring that everyone got to school on time. Pete then continued in his role of hero-of-the-day by coming back to fix the car. As it turned out, the problem was just a loose connection on the battery – thank goodness! We had visions of a big trip to the garage, followed by a big bill at the end of it, but luckily Pete saved the day and Lisa was mobile once more.

What made things more tricky was the stormy weather front that was sitting over western France, and in particular, our house. All week the house has been lashed by high winds and torrential rain, getting so bad that one day even the trampoline blew away! This is the trampoline that normally takes 3 of us to move it in order to cut the grass, but the wind clearly managed to get hold of it and Lisa found it upside-down on top of one of the pear trees, bent and broken. And today poor Rosie woke to find a puddle of water in her room – the rain has clearly found a way in through the roof and had been running down her wall (only plasterboard, so now rather soggy) and forming a large pool on her floor. Argh! We mopped up the water and, once the hurricane had died down outside, I went up on the ladder to see if I could identify the source of the leak. Sadly, I couldn’t spot any big holes that might lead to such a problem, so we just have to keep our fingers crossed for now that the worst of the rain is over for now.

So, on balance, not the greatest of weeks, but Lisa did paint the kitchen before I came home, and a rather splendid job she did too! Photos will follow!

Oh, and guess who’s out of oil once again…?

This morning saw the thickest frost so far this year. It meant I was nearly late getting the girls to the school bus at 7am this morning due to having to de-ice the car, but at least when the sun came out it revealed some really nice frosted plantlife.

Cette semaine toutefois, ma présence a été demandé à Bristol. Qui ne serait pas si mal, si le voyage a coïncidé avec la Bristol à La Rochelle vols, mais il ne l’est pas. Je dois retourner demain, lorsqu’il n’ya pas de vols à La Rochelle. Donc, mon voyage pour 2 jours aller quelque chose comme ça …

Conduire à Nantes, prendre le train pour Paris, prendre le métro à Charles de Gaule, prendre l’avion pour Londres Heathrow, prendre le train pour Londres Paddington, prendre le train à Maidenhead, prendre un taxi à mon hôtel. C’est la fin du jeudi, à environ 11pm, j’en suis sûr.

Ensuite, le vendredi-je obtenir ramassé de l’hôtel, conduire à Bristol, au travail pendant environ 4 heures, puis voler de Bristol à Paris, le métro de Paris à Montparnasse, prendre le train de Montparnasse à Nantes, puis passer à Foussais.

C’est un voyage de plus de 2000km!

Je pense que mon empreinte carbone sera assez grande de cette semaine et par Samedi je serai usé! Pas le temps de repos cependant, que Molly a un autre tournoi de handball le samedi …

We finally made it back to Foussais on Saturday night after 14 hours and 1100km travelling. We had had a strange week back in England – it was lovely to see our family and friends again, and especially for the kids, but it all seemed very strange. Like we now have 2 lives and they very rarely meet. Back in the UK we were part of a circle of friends families that all knew each other and now we have that life, but also another over here. We have some great fiends and a while different way of living, but it hasn’t replaced what we have in England, but the 2 lives co-exist. When we returned to Grimsby we just picked up where we left off 5 months ago and I’m sure we will again, although quite when that will be I don’t know.

The journey back home was pretty easy and uneventful. After driving up to England in 2 cars, it was nice to all be together for the return trip (having left the Picasso in the hands of my folks – it’s being picked up any day now) and it meant that we could share the driving. So I had the job of getting us from Grimsby to Dover, then from Dunkerque to Rouen and Lisa got us home from there. On the subject of Dunkerque I have to speak up in praise of Norfolk Line ferries. The return journey cost us just £38 which we were amazed by. The ferries are fairly modern and well stocked, although the port at Dunkerque felt a bit like we were going to be lifted onto a container ship rather than a car ferry – very out of the way in the middle of an industrial estate! The 2-hour journey was just long enough to have a meal and stretch those cramped legs before embarking on the 2nd leg of the journey. Altogether a grand experience.

Upon returning to our house we were excited to see how the builders had got on with finishing Rosie’s bedroom. What a great job they have done. We are all hugely impressed with the work. Having never really done any renovation before, it’s hard to believe that our cold, dusty loft, with holes in the floor and roof, has now been transformed into a large, cosy bedroom. It really is quite a stunning transformation and makes such a difference to the upstairs of the house. If anyone is in the area and looking for good builders, I would certainly recommend them. We will have lots more building work coming up – I need a study, the kids need a play room and Lisa wants her new kitchen! – and they will certainly be top of the list to do the work. The only downside was that they cleaned us out of tea, coffee and milk! On our departure I had said “Help yourself” and they did…emptying the box of milk from the fridge AND the 2 from the store. Not a huge problem – a quick trip to St Hilaire des Loges on Sunday morning did the trick – but would have been nice to have breakfast in the morning without having to go for a drive first. But hey, they were a great team and I can’t grumble.

Our other surprise was not quite so exciting – we had had visitors while we were away…Ants! The kitchen was awash with the little blighters. I set upon them with the kitchen spray to stem the tide and managed to clear most of them away, only to find them back again in the morning. All part of the fun of living in the countryside I guess… A kettle full of boiling water over their entry point on the outside wall seems to have slowed them down for now until I can get out to buy some proper stuff… Anyone got any tips for shifting Adam and his mates?

Of course, having been away for about 10 days, the grass, of which we have plenty, had grown rather substantially, so I tackled that little job next. The grass by the back-door was first – rather quickly done due to the multitude of buzzing insects round there. I fear we may be providing bed and board for the local populations of bees and wasps in our un-renovated rooms. That’ll be more fun to come. Although I did spot a rather interesting looking red beetle tightrope walking along the washing line, who didn’t buzz and stoood nice and still for a photo…

Anyway, the grass got half-way cut when suddenly with a loud TWANG the mower stopped. Somehow the drive belt had snapped!

So much for our nice short grass – I hadn’t even got round to the front yet, which was the bit that really needed doing. And of course, it being Sunday, there was nowhere open to get a new one, so the now-useless machine went away and we sat in the sun and drank wine and beer with Peter and Judith instead…a much better prospect. I do love Sundays over here…

5 months ago we left Grimsby on a wet and windy December day, but our hearts were happy as we were starting our journey to our new life in France. So much has happened since then and it feels very strange to be back in Grimsby again, knowing that it isn’t home.

We came back for several reasons. Firstly to sell our English car, the Picasso. It’s done us proud, never really going wrong, never failing to start, and only once allegedly getting us into trouble. But sadly, although she is a French girl at heart, she has an English slant, being a right-hand drive which makes her a bit of a cripple when it comes to driving on the french roads. So we brought two cars up to England (leaving Chippie to have a well-earned break), me driving the Picasso and Lisa in the Zafira. The Picasso is 6 years old, but she did a cracking job on the drive up. Not a murmur from her for about 1100 kilometres. Then as we sped along the Lincoln bypass, with journey’s end in sight, my poor Picasso developed a very throaty noise. Yes, we had negotiated the hills and valleys of northern France, done battle with the M25, conquered the A1, but the A46 was just too much for it and the exhaust fell apart. Our triumphant return was not quite as spectacular as we had hoped, limping in sounding like something from world war 1. And now I have to try to sell the bloody thing! I had hoped that I would easily shift it, as it is in generally very good condition and everything else works, but a dodgy exhaust really gets you off on a bad footing with a dealer when he can hear you approaching from a mile away. Ah well, we’ll see how we get on and I’ll let you know.

Another reason for us coming back to the UK was for us all to see our family, and, perhaps more importantly, for the kids to see their friends. This was a difficult decision for us as we were unsure how much it would unsettle them. Although they are very happy in France and they all have really good friends from school, it is still a lot harder for them a they are still elarning the language and so cannot just chat with their mates, like they could in England. We all know that will come, but it must get very frustrating for them. So a return to England was very welcome for them so that they could have a few days of being able to hang out and natter with friends like they used to do. The danger is, will this then make them realise how hard it is back home in France and send them off the rails in terms of their settling down? I don’t know – It’s really tough to know what to do for the best. We will just have to cross that bridge when we come to it I think.

One thing is for certain. Upon reading the papers, watching the television, driving around and seeing the people here, we are all glad we made the move. It has been great to see our family and freinds while we are here and we wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to see them, but we know we could never move back here. France is our home and that’s where we will stay.

It seems my previous rant was not in vain. I received a comment on that post from someone claiming to be from Barnet council, which was filtered as spam. As it turns out, it wasn’t spam at all and they HAVE cancelled my penalty charge notice! Hurrah for Barnet!

So ‘merci beaucoup’ to Claire Millington…it’s nice to see local authorities making use of t’internet to help flush out the real baddies in the world and leaving us normal folks to get on with our lives.

I got everything organised, booked my flight, hotel, train & parking (I wasn’t getting caught out again by having to find €21 in coins to feed into the parking machine at Niort station!). I won’t bore you with the details (but DARN these rural french folks) but I ended up just missing the train from Niort to Paris. “When is the next train?” I pant to the woman at the station, having tried to sprint along the platform with my rather-too-heavy-for hand-luggage. “15:24 monsieur.” That sounded bad to me… “Il arrive à Paris à quelle heure?” “17:40″…..Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!! That would leave me less than an hour to get from Paris Montparnasse to Charles de Gaul airport. Quite simply not enough time, given that it was rush hour.

So I faced the prospect of having to cancel my flight, or at least change it until the next day, which would mean finding somewhere to stay overnight….all so much hassle. But thankfully, my colleague Sam saved the day by telling me about Royal Bikes. They are a motorcycle taxi firm, and they were amazing!

Now, I am the sort of old-school guy who always says that motorbikes are death-traps, an accident waiting to happen etc. etc., but I have to say…. WOW! It was the first time I had ever been on a motorbike and after the first 10 minutes of sheer panic as I watched us squeeze in between the cars vans and lorries with inches to spare, I actually really enjoyed it. And talk about exhillarating! Big Thunder Mountain has nothing on this – racing round the paris perepherique at rush hour, swerving in and out of the traffic….It was one hell of a journey.

And incredibly he got me there on time – 18:20 I arrived at the air France desk, where a nice young lady took me to the front of the queue so I could race off to catch the flight to Bucharest.

I don’t think I’ll be swapping my Chippie for a motorbike just yet, but I might be daring and open the windows when I’m going fast, just to remember a taste of that crazy journey.

I had a letter today, redirected from my old address, which turned out to be a Penalty Charge Notice from Barnet council.

Now, it’s a fair cop, if I had been trogging along in the bus lane in The Hyde NW9 on my way home from work on 17th March, I would ‘fess up and pay my dues. After all, Barnet council are Putting The Community First and I would hate to stand in the way of that mission.

My “alleged contravention” was even supported by video tape evidence – blimey, you’ve got me bang to right guv. I’m all prepared for Gene Hunt to throw me in prison and say something funny about b*stards.

But wait…..

Just a cotton-pickin’ minute!

17th March?

I put it to you, Barnet Council, that your camera-toting operative, checking out the passers-by in The Hyde NW9, has had the wool pulled firmly over his video-camera eye-piece. My allegedly-contravening car has been sitting by the side of my house in France for the last 4 months, and is still there to this day, looking rather sad. How does that work?

Not only that, on the day in question m’lud, I was in Paris, attending a rather long and boring business meeting along with about 8 other folks. And unless my good lady wife had nipped off to England for a day’s shopping, (unlikely given that it would have taken about 10 hours to get there and 10 hours to get back, not leaving a lot of time to sample the delights of Barnet’s shopping centres), I think it highly unlikely that it was her either.

So, it would seem that some not-too bright chappie is driving round London bus lanes with a clone of my number plate, contravening regulations here and there, and expecting me to cough up for his fines. Well Mr Not-So-Bright-Criminal, I think you’ll find that’s not going to happen. You see, I have the evidence and you don’t. My log book is official and tallies up. Yours won’t. My registration number is registered to my CAR. Yours is stuck on the back of a random VAN with blu-tack.

Nice try matey, but better luck next time.