France 2010, SeaFrance and Carrefour

In August 2009 we travelled to Northern France and stayed in a farm cottage just outside of Boulogne and we had such a good time that we agreed to repeat the adventure in 2010. It was perfect really because we had little Molly, my granddaughter, with us and with Sally, my daughter, being such a notoriously untidy packer it was convenient just to take the car and fill it up with overflowing bags of clothes (many of which would never be worn) carrier bags full of last minute thoughts and all of the other items of necessity when travelling with a two year old.

Not quite all of the items that we were going to need however because Sally forgot the pushchair and a bag of essentials including all of Molly’s socks and shoes. Before we could leave therefore the first thing we had to do was go shopping for a cheap replacement stroller and some new footwear.

Mindful of the delays and road works that we had run into the previous year we set off early on Saturday morning giving ourselves plenty of time to get to the south coast. Everything went without a hitch and we sailed down the A1, the A14 and the M11 and even the M25 was flowing freely when we joined it. We crossed the Queen Elizabeth Bridge and passed through the toll booths and I breathed a sigh of relief and confident of being in Dover well ahead of schedule we made contact with Richard, who was travelling independently, to organise a rendezvous. I was relaxed now and easily distracted and somehow at just about this time I missed the turn for Dover and carried on obliviously around the M25.

It took about fifteen minutes to realise something was wrong because there were no signs for Dover any more and we were clearly travelling in a westerly direction when we should have been going east. And I didn’t have a road map either so decided the best thing was to stick on the M25 until the next junction and then turn around. At the first opportunity I was so annoyed with myself that although I got off I became confused by the size of the roundabout (Lincolnshire roundabouts are so much smaller) and got straight back on again still travelling west! I didn’t realise that there were so few junctions on the south east section of the motorway and we travelled for thirty miles or so, well past the sign for Gatwick, until we were able to turn around and park the car in the right direction.

This inevitably put the carefully scheduled itinerary into free fall and having lost almost fifty minutes as a result of the detour the planned rendezvous and spot of leisurely lunch had to be abandoned. The Sea France crossing was scheduled for half past twelve and we arrived with forty minutes to spare and joined the lines of cars, coaches and lorries all waiting for the ferry. Everything was much busier than last year with far more traffic. We had booked our return crossing for only £65 in January but when we checked later it was over £200 and by the week before our journey there was no more availability. Perhaps more people were using their cars this year as a result of the ash cloud problems earlier in the year but there didn’t seem to be any real explanation.

The port was busy and the ferry was half an hour late so we didn’t get on board until after one o’clock and made our way to the passenger decks. It was naturally busier on board as well and we struggled to find a seat and it took over twenty minutes to queue up and buy a couple of beers. Luckily our cars were at the front of the ship so after we docked after a swift crossing on a calm sea the ferry doors opened and we were amongst the first away as we by-passed the town of Calais and under a chalky sky started to head south-west following signs towards Boulogne.

We couldn’t go directly there of course because we had an important stop to make at the Cité d’Europe and a visit to Carrefour to stock up on essential items like beer and wine and a bit of food as well of course. Rachel had been looking forward to this part of the holiday for some time and was almost beside herself when I suggested missing it out and going to a smaller supermarket along the way instead but she cheered up when I was overruled by the rest of the team. Rachel especially wanted to go to Cité d’Europe because she wanted to visit all of the exclusive clothes shops that you just don’t find in the United Kingdom, places like New Look, H&M and Top Shop and she went off with Sally for girly shopping while the rest of us were left with responsibility for alcohol and bread.

Carrefour was unusually busy as well and to be honest I found the whole visit a bit of a chore so I was glad when it was over and we were back on the road for the final forty kilometres of the journey towards our destination of the small village of Longvilliers just outside the posh resort town of Le Touquet Paris Plage.

France - Day 7, Boulogne Revisited

The morning started just like all the others. Molly woke early and I entertained her until the others joined us for breakfast. This morning we had a choking incident because of her habit of putting everything in her mouth and then a messy nappy incident which I swear she found amusing because she waited me to change her once before immediately filling the replacement. I noticed this on holiday that she is beginning to play games with us now and finding amusement in being a tease. At the beginning of the week she would put gravel in her mouth just because she didn’t know better but by the end of the week she was doing it to torment us because she knew that she shouldn’t.

Richard was the first up after me and we needed some bread and croissants so we drove to Boulonge stopping on the way to visit La Colonne de la Grande Armée, which is conveniently situated next door to Carrefour. The column was erected in the 1840s and is a fifty-three metre-high monument topped with a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte. (Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square is shorter at forty-six metres high). It marks the base camp where Napoleon massed France's biggest ever army of eighty thousand men ready to invade England. It was initially intended to commemorate a successful invasion of England, but this proved to be a bit premature and as he didn’t quite manage that it now commemorates instead the first distribution of the Imperial Légion d'honneur. Originally, when it was first completed, the statue had looked out over the Channel towards England, the land Napoleon had confidently expected to conquer but after the Second World War, the French government turned the statue of Napoleon round to face inland, as a mark of respect to the British allies in the war.

After a very slow start to the day we sat in the garden and watched the weather improving gradually as the grey cloud gave way to white and then eventually to blue sky but it was still windy and Richard was still complaining when we packed the car to make a return visit to Boulogne.

The girls wanted to visit the Nausicaa Aquarium on the sea front but Richard and I wanted to return to the old town to see the bits that we had missed on the earlier first visit. After we had left them at the entrance we walked along the port and this was another surprise because Boulogne, it turns out, is the biggest fishing port in France and there is a large fishing fleet including deep-sea trawlers and factory ships, as well as smaller sea-going and inshore fishing boats. A third of France's fresh fish catch is landed here, and a huge quay-side fish processing factory makes 20% of the nation's tinned fish, and half of the frozen fish, fish fingers and other fish-based ready meals.

The sun was shining and down at the coast the wind had curiously dropped so it was warm as we walked past the main shopping street and back up the hill towards the medieval castle. This time we walked for a while outside of the walls and then we went inside and with more time available today explored some of the back streets and alleyways. This was our last day and my last opportunity for my favourite moules et frites because although I had had them the previous evening this had been a bit of a rushed affair. Today we found a pavement café on the Rue de Lille where a Frenchman was playing accordion to entertain the diners and I finally achieved my objective of enjoying a pot of steaming molluscs.

After lunch we strolled around a while longer, outside the huge Cathedral, which was rebuilt in the nineteenth century as a symbol of the revival of the French Catholic Church after the Revolution in which the old cathedral and so many other churches were closed and destroyed. We didn’t go inside but even from the street we could appreciate the size of the massive dome, which is one of the biggest in Europe. At the other end of the old town was the town hall where there was free entry to the Belfry Tower that included a guided tour and history of the building, which was helpfully given in English as well as French. There was a long climb with a couple of stops for informative narrative and there were good views from the top of the tower and we were lucky to be part of quite a small group of visitors because we had time and space to enjoy the rooftop vista.

The girls had enjoyed the aquarium and were waiting for us on the white sandy beach when we returned slightly late to meet them. Every winter storms strip the sand away and then every summer the city council imports several hundred tonnes from further up the coast to make sure that Boulogne has a beach to enjoy at least for a few months.

On the way home we showed the girls La Colonne de la Grande Armée but they didn’t seem impressed and certainly not excited enough to get out of the car so we returned directly to Maninghen-Henne and sat in the garden and braved the gusty winds which were much stronger here inland. Later Molly used the paddling pool in the shower and we had our final evening meal in France before we started to think about and organise ourselves for the journey back to the United Kingdom the next day. At nine o’clock we did the bottle bank and village walk routine and we were getting much better at this now because Molly was asleep within ten minutes and straight to bed when we got back to the cottage.

As it was the last night there were bottles to finish off and we stayed up later than usual and sat and chatted and reminisced about a thoroughly enjoyable holiday in France with our daughters. No golf of course but we had had a good time all the same!

Up early in the morning I was able to reflect on the holiday and it occurred to me that this had been a week for some relearning points when it comes to looking after a baby and being with Molly especially at these times in the morning when we were alone together gave me the opportunity to think about these. Here are my top three: Firstly when going on holiday with baby take plenty of changes of clothes – for yourself! several of my shirts were destroyed by the end of the week; secondly remember that baby will always take a dump at the most inconvenient time such as just getting on the ferry, at lunch time in a restaurant or most frustratingly thirty seconds after a previous change; thirdly, there is a world of difference between putting baby to sleep and getting baby to sleep – I had completely forgotten that one!

During the night a crawly insect had disturbed Rachel but Richard had dismissed this as imagination and told her to back to sleep. He was forced to reassess his judgment and apologise next morning when he came across a spider that was al least four inches from the end of one of its legs to another. I wouldn’t have wanted to sleep with it that’s for sure and Richard wouldn’t tackle it this morning without back-up!

We had a final breakfast of bread and croissants and used up as much of the food as we could and then we packed and tidied and then settled our account with the young man who had greeted us a week ago and suddenly at eleven o’clock it was time to leave so we said goodbye to the cottage that had been our home for the past week.

We drove to the Cite d’Europe via a service station for fuel where there was a curious incident when both our cars failed to register that fuel had been put into the tank and Richard suspected a scam and it took some unexplainable time to put itself right and I can think of no logical reason why. At the hypermarket we did some last minute cheap booze shopping and then drove to Calais to wait for our ferry which was slightly delayed but crossed the channel in completely calm conditions that allowed us to enjoy a outside top deck crossing and watch as France slipped away and the white cliffs of Dover welcomed us back to England.