France 2010, Hardelot Plage (again) and Etaples

The cottage was just a few kilometres from the holiday resort town of Le Touquet Paris Plage but we hadn’t visited yet so we agreed that as this was our last day that we really ought to go and see the place and after breakfast we loaded the cars and set off.

We made good progress at first but as we got closer to the coast the roads began to get busy, progress slowed down and then eventually ground to a complete halt. I calculated that we were still about six kilometres from the town and the coast and the traffic was at an almost complete standstill. It seemed that everyone else in Northern France had also decided to visit Le Touquet today.

I have visited Le Touquet a couple of times and stayed there while on golfing holidays and I think it is a very nice place but not so special that I would want to queue for an hour or so to get in and then struggle to find a parking space if I ever made it. Not sure because unlike the surrounding towns of Nord Pas de Calais, the words ‘quaint’ and ‘medieval’ have no place there. The resort is too young for cobbles and ramparts and the same goes for museums and Cathedrals. I also seem to remember a lot of dog shit! The main event is Le Touquet itself, a case of leisure over culture and I was certain that we could all live with the disappointment of not actually going there so at a convenient junction we left the line of crawling traffic and decided instead to revisit Hardelot because we were certain that there were some parts of the town that we had missed earlier in the week.

The locals call Hardelot ‘little Le Touquet’ but there were no such traffic problems getting in and we drove effortlessly to the centre and parked in a car park where we were the only two cars. The sun was shining but it was a bit too breezy for the beach so we headed instead for the tiny town centre and its couple of streets of shops and restaurants. Actually there wasn’t a great deal to see and this didn’t take very long and very soon afterwards we were on the promenade and enjoying the bracing sea air.

Hardelot is a well-to-do sort of town and many Parisians own property here and use it for summer and weekend breaks. Apart from the grand villas however I personally don’t find the place that attractive and behind the sea front is a ribbon of featureless high rise flats most of them with their shutters firmly closed for most of the year. Like Le Touquet, Hardelot was occupied by the Nazis in the Second-World-War and they did huge amounts of damage before retreating ahead of the Allied invasion forces. Much of it had to be rebuilt and this explains the prominence of these rather unattractive buildings.

We walked back through the town and found a sunny spot to stop for a refreshment break and ordered some beer and sipped it slowly on account of the prices and then speculating that the roads might be less busy now we decided to have a second attempt at getting into Le Touquet.

The route to Le Touquet took us towards the old fishing town of Étaples on the river Canche and just outside the town we stopped to visit the largest Commonwealth War Graves site in France where nearly twelve thousand soldiers are buried.

Because of its strategic position Étaples was the scene of much Allied activity during World War One due to its safety from attack by enemy land forces and the existence of railway connections with both the northern and southern battlefields. The town was home to sixteen hospitals and a convalescent depot, in addition to a number of reinforcement camps for Commonwealth soldiers and general barracks for the French Army. By all accounts this was a truly dreadful place and most soldiers buried in the cemetery died after treatment in the hospitals. It is said that after two weeks, many of the wounded would rather return to the front with unhealed wounds rather than remain at Étaples.



It was also a particularly notorious base camp for those on their way to the front. Under atrocious conditions, both raw recruits and battle-weary veterans were subjected to intensive training in gas warfare, bayonet drill, and long sessions of marching at the double across the dunes. There was resentment against the officers who enjoyed the better conditions of Le Touquet and from which the men were forbidden to visit and this led to a famous mutiny in September 1917 which was brutally repressed.

Apart from the solemn rows of white headstones there was no reminder of this unpleasantness today as we entered the cemetery through the impressive memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and walked through the carefully tended graves. I had never visited a war graves site before and it was poignant to read the inscriptions on the graves and sad to see how young so many of them were who never returned to England. Molly ran and skipped through the rows of graves and I was struck by the fact that she could only do this because of the ultimate sacrifices made by all these men.

After the visit to the cemetery we continued on our journey towards Le Touquet but at Étaples the traffic ground to a halt again and not wishing to spend our last afternoon in a traffic jam we resigned ourselves to not seeing Le Touquet this year and turned the cars around and returned to the cottage at Longvilliers.

It was lovely sitting in the garden in the late afternoon, the sun was shining and there was no wind, Molly played in her pool, the wasps kept falling in the improved trap, we drank some beer and wine and Richard prepared for what he promised would be the best log fire of the week. Later, when it had cooled down, Molly and I went for a walk into the village and had a last look at the livestock in Camille’s garden and I knew she understood that this would be the last time because we were going home tomorrow.

Molly went to sleep earlier than usual and Richard didn’t let us down with the fire. He supervised a final excellent barbeque meal where we used up all of the remaining food including the last of the pasta dishes that Rachel and Sally had prepared four nights ago! After the food Richard placed his specially selected log on the fire and it entertained us for a couple of hours or so as it burnt away in the brick barbeque and slowly turned to embers and ash. We had enjoyed our barbeque meals but they were all over now and we left the garden and went to bed knowing that the first job in the morning was to pack.

The next day the weather was miserable again so with no reason to hang around we finished our packing, tidied the cottage and after the return of the deposit we set off for Calais with plenty of time allowed for a second visit to Carrefour at the Cité de Europe to stock up on cheap beer and wine.

We left France in a rain storm and arrived backing England to be greeted by another one and on account of the bad weather we felt sorry for all the people queuing to take our place on the ferry for the return crossing.

We had had another good week in France and we all look forward to returning again perhaps next year.

France 2010, Berck Plage (again) and French Obesity

I can only put it down to the peace and quiet of the place but everyone seemed to be taking things easier by the end of the week and even Molly was sleeping longer and she didn’t wake me up this morning until almost eight o’clock. This was still earlier than all of the others however and it was well past nine before we sat down for breakfast and some time past ten when we had finished clearing up.

This didn’t matter because we were in no particular rush today and planned an easy itinerary with a return visit to the beach at Berck.

We spent most of the morning in the garden, Molly and I played ball, Richard checked the wasp trap and chose his logs for tonight’s fire, Sally read her book, Rachel had a nap and we did some washing, some items for the second time this week, and it was almost midday when we finally set off for the short journey to the coast.

We drove past Montreuil and along the clear roads towards Berck but close to the town the traffic became heavy and we spent some time in a crawling traffic jam making only slow progress. Eventually we broke through the bottleneck and arrived in Berck. We tried to get closer to the town this time but this proved difficult and after I had driven down a road on the wrong side and frightened a poor French motorist half to death we decided it was safer to simply return to the same beach next to the crumbling convalescence hospital.

The hotel is there because Berck, a former fishing village, took on a therapeutic role in the treatment of tuberculosis during the Second Empire. The Maritime hospital was inaugurated in 1869 by Empress Eugenie and other hospitals and benevolent institutes were soon created to cater for the sick and those in need of rest and recuperation.

We were a bit earlier today so the tide wasn’t as far out and there wasn’t so much beach to choose from so we selected a spot in the soft sand just above the high tide mark and it turned out to be a good job that we did because although we didn’t know it the tide was coming in. Molly enjoyed the sand and the lagoons again and was even a bit more adventurous about going further into the sea. Actually the sea was surprisingly warm and Richard and I both stripped down to our bathing costumes (garish yellow Hawaiian style for Richard and Speedos for me) and we went swimming in the sea and this was the first time that I had been fully submerged in the waters of the English Channel since at least 1975.

As the sea came steadily towards us and covered the beach, more and more people started to arrive and the sand was starting to get a bit crowded. One surprising thing was the amount of fat people on the beach because France has always prided itself on being slim and healthy with a belief that there is something in the French lifestyle that protects them against obesity, heart disease and diabetes. This is called the ‘French Paradox’ and is now being exposed as a myth because they are straying from the very dietary habits that made them the envy of the world: eating small portions, eating lots of vegetables, drinking in moderation, and limited snacking. It seems that the French are exercising less, eating more fast food, and are employed in more service jobs where time is spent sitting at a desk rather than driving a tractor or working an assembly line. Overall six and a half million French, that’s 14.5% of the population, are now classified as obese and it is worse in the north (around 20%) because of the rich heavy food of the region.

To illustrate this shift we can look at the example of McDonalds. Even though the French will maintain that they despise the fast food chain and the concept an awful lot of people do eat there. Across France there are nearly nine hundred restaurants and in Paris there are almost seventy restaurants under golden arches, with even more dotted around the outer suburbs. That’s much the same as London, but with only a third of the people. McDonald’s, or “macdoh” as it is known, is France’s dirty secret. In 2007 the chain’s French revenues increased by 11 per cent to €3 billion. That’s more than it generates in Britain and in terms of profit, France is second only to the United States itself.

There were some really heavy specimens on the beach at Berck today (they may not all of been French of course) and even worse there were more and more dogs arriving and running about the sand. I have explained many times that I am not a lover of dogs so I started to feel uncomfortable about this and I was almost pleased when the clouds started to move in and blotted out the sun and everyone agreed that this was a good time to leave.

On the way back we stopped briefly in Montreuil for some final supplies and extra beers but in the late afternoon a lot of the town was closed and the bars weren’t open and the place lacked atmosphere so we abandoned the plans for a drink and went back to the cottage instead.

Molly and I went for a long walk towards the next village in search of a field of cows but they were a long way a way so we had to count tractors instead and then sit and watch a combine harvester working in a field of corn and reducing the flowing clouds of golden stems to a carpet of brown stubble. On the way back we had to pass Camille’s house and when he spotted us he came out to greet us and Molly asked to see his rabbit and he was only too happy to oblige.

This evening, like all of them, passed surprisingly quickly as we played in the garden and waited for Molly to tire herself out and Richard prepared the barbeque. We were enjoying the al fresco dining and once again after we had finished we sat around the fire but Richard kept the poker well out of my reach.

France 2010, Boulogne Sur Mer

We were all relieved to find that it wasn’t raining and it looked as though Camille’s welcome forecast was completely accurate because the weather this morning was in complete contrast to yesterday, the sun was already shining and the sky was a blank blue canvas.

We followed the early morning routine that we had already established, went to see the ducks and the hens, visited Camille and saw the rabbit and walked a while through the village before returning to the cottage for our usual farm house breakfast, part English, part continental but every day a perfect combination. On account of the good weather we did some washing and hung it on the line before we finally left the cottage and set off for Boulogne about twenty-five kilometres away.

Being mean and naturally reluctant to pay the motorway toll we took the cross country route again and much to the girl’s annoyance made a small detour to visit the wind turbines high on a hill and with good views all around and then we carried on and made good progress until we reached the southern outskirts of the town. We were aiming for the north so it would have been much more convenient to use the motorway because the route through the town was congested and confusing and when we reached the car park we were aiming for there was no room anyway so we had to drive a kilometre or so out of town to find somewhere to park.

Actually, we were so far out of town that we were within sight of the La Colonne de la Grande Armée, which is a column that was erected in the 1840s and is a fifty-three metre-high monument topped with a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte. (Higher than Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square which is slightly 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.

We strolled casually down the hill into the town past the Nausicaa Aquarium, one of the largest in France, on the sea front and walked along the port and this was a 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 girls wanted to shop but this wasn’t in our plans so we left them to it and continued on up a steep hill to visit the historic centre. Boulogne old town is built within the original Roman walls and has recently been well restored and it was in complete contrast to the concrete and glass of the sea front and the shopping streets. Here was the beating heart of a medieval city with a castle, a cathedral and narrow streets lined with charming properties, little shops, cafés and bars. In the middle was a public space with imaginative public art based on giant vegetable sculptures called ‘Le Jardin de Gulliver’ which was probably something only the French could do so well.

We hadn’t allowed a lot of time for this and we could have done with longer but it was very hot now so after a beer and a baguette at a pavement café (where I had to discreetly tackle an especially obnoxious nappy) we walked along the main street full of interesting shops and busy restaurants and under the walls of 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.

We left the old town by a gate next to the Castle Museum and I am forever amazed at the bits of trivia that I pick up on my travels because who would have guessed that inside is the most important exhibition of masks from Alaska in the whole world? Why isn’t the most important exhibition of masks from Alaska in Alaska? We didn’t go inside because we weren’t sure that Molly would appreciate it so we left and walked through the gardens beneath the walls and back to the agreed rendezvous point with the girls where they were waiting for us after completing their shopping.

We had enjoyed the old town and Sally and Rachel their shopping but now it was time to leave. Richard and I walked back up the hill to the cars while the others stayed on the white sandy beach in front of the aquarium. It is a nice beach but is only temporary because 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.

There was a confusing route out of the town but by a combination of judgment and good luck we managed to find the correct road out and once we had cleared the scruffy outskirts we were soon back in the open countryside and motoring south back towards the rural tranquility of our holiday village.

Back in the garden Molly played in her paddling pool and I had a couple of beers while Richard and the girls went to the supermarket for a few supplies that we were running short of (especially tomatoes). This had been another excellent day and I had enjoyed the return trip to Boulogne which had so surprised me last year as a town well worth a visit but one so very easily missed. Best of all, our weather forecasting neighbour promised us another sunny day tomorrow.

We didn’t do anything different in the evening of course, Molly stayed up for as long as she possibly could before finally giving in and then Richard prepared the barbeque and cooked a similar meal to every other night. It would have been nice to go out for a meal but we all remembered last years expensive disaster when Molly wouldn’t sit still and it cost us nearly €100 for a meal we didn’t really enjoy so it was much easier to stay at the cottage, cook for ourselves and enjoy a few beers.

As the evening drew to an end I had the inevitable accident with the log fire. Poking around in the embers a piece of red hot charcoal fell onto the ground and as I took evasive action I lost control of the red hot poker and struck Richard in the back of the leg and in the process leaving him with a brand that he was stuck with for the rest of the holiday. I went to bed soon after that before I could do any more damage.

France 2010, A Washout

This morning there was a disappointing grey sky with heavy clouds rolling in from the west that didn’t look especially promising. Longvilliers is located in the Pays-de-Calais Department which is the coolest, wettest region of the country and that is a chance that you take when choosing this part of France for a holiday even in July and August. The main influence on the climate is the North Atlantic Ocean and whilst this keeps the area from extremes of temperature it also makes it quite windy and wet and the flat-low lying terrain prevalent in the west of France allows these weather systems to blow far inland.

There was no sign of improvement after breakfast had been cleared away so Richard and I went to the supermarket with the girls because as it was their turn to cook tonight they wanted to select the ingredients for their planned meal. It was gloomy on the way to Montreuil and spitting with rain when we left the supermarket with the provisions that we needed but by the time we returned to the cottage there was a steady drenching rain that kept us confined to the house.

It was midday and we were certain there was time for improvement so we did the things that you have to do on holiday when bad weather forces you inside while waiting for any signs of a change.

We had a cup of tea, did a bit of tidying up and Sally and Molly had an early afternoon nap. Finally we had a beer and played cards for an hour as we watched the rain trickling down the window panes and slowly our earlier optimism began to drain away. At three o’clock we gave in to the inevitability of it all and resigned ourselves to a complete wash out. Sure now that we wouldn’t be driving anywhere today Richard and I opened another bottle of beer, Rachel and Molly did some crayoning and Sally read a book.

In the cottage next door the English family had had enough and about mid afternoon we saw them packing their bags into their car and they explained that they were fed up with the weather and they didn’t especially like their accommodation anyway so they were going home.

Later on it actually started to ease off, the nasty dark grey clouds gave way to light grey clouds and the rain changed to just a steady drizzle and so having had enough of being inside we found a garden umbrella and Richard and I went outside to drink our beer, Molly put her rain suit on and played in the garden without any concern at all about the weather and we all started to cheer up.

Although it was cool there were still some wasps around and one that was pestering Richard became agitated as he tried unsuccessfully to swat it and it carried out a lightening fast attack and stung him on his wrist and within seconds his arm was red and swollen and we were searching for the first aid kit. Richard went looking for revenge and after killing a couple then improved the wasp trap and watched enthusiastically as one by one they came by and fell in and drowned.

As the day went on the weather kept improving (it couldn’t get any worse) and by early evening the rain had stopped and we were able to take our walk through the village along the side of the Dordonne River which was flowing much faster tonight on account of all the rain. Camille spotted us and came to say hello and he promised us major improvement for the next day. Soleil, soleil he kept saying and poking a finger towards the sky which we interpreted as tomorrow’s forecast for full sun and blue skies.

As it was the girl’s turn to cook we left them to it and sat in the garden where it was damp but it hadn’t rained for the last two hours and waited for a gastronomic delight. We knew that we were to get a repeat of last year’s offer of a couple of pasta dishes and based on that previous year’s experience we did offer some advice on portion control but they took no notice and cooked two full packets of pasta and produced enough food to last for the rest of the week.

It really wasn’t fit to sit outside and eat so we were forced inside tonight but the cottage had a large farmhouse table and it was good fun to spend a long time over a big meal, enjoy real conversation with family without the interruption of a television and afterwards play some more cards, drink some more beer and progress slowly towards the final gin and tonics as the heavy rain returned outside.

And inside as well as it turned out because we had left the bedroom windows open and in our room the wind had blown the driving rain through the velux roof window and had completely soaked the room. There was a puddle on the floor and the bed linen was soaked right through as well as any clothes that had been left carelessly lying around. We had to clear all of that up of course before we could go to bed and it was raining again.

France 2010, Hardelot Plage

There was much better weather the next morning so after breakfast we were in no particular rush to leave the cottage and stayed around the garden and entertained Molly before taking a slow walk along the village lanes to see the farm animals. Camille spotted us and came outside to say bonjour and then insisted on a guided tour of his garden with its immaculate vegetable plot overflowing with plump ripe produce. He couldn’t speak a word of English but he explained in great detail what everything was and how best to prepare, cook and eat it. I could follow some of this by picking out the odd familiar schoolboy French word but to be honest most of it was just a rapid Gallic blur.

Molly had no interest in the vegetables but she liked it when he took us into an outhouse to introduce us to his pet rabbit (I like to think it was a pet and not just being fattened for the pot) and a scruffy white dove in a tiny cage and she was very reluctant to leave. I had to bribe her out with a walk around the poultry pens and a quick lesson in bird identification. I knew that having seen it she wasn’t going to forget that rabbit and sure enough we had to visit the thing every day after this until the end of the holiday.

Mid morning and Richard and I went to the nearest supermarket about fifteen kilometres away and took Molly so that the girls could get ready for a trip to the sea and with the sun shining we planned to return to the beach but this time to visit the nearby resort of Hardelot in between Le Touquet and Boulogne. Richard and I had played golf there a couple of years ago but we had never visited the beach before.

To get there required a cross country journey through a succession of small towns and villages along narrow roads meandering through undulating countryside with golden fields of freshly cut hay contrasting with and harmonising perfectly against the rich green meadows with their herds of lazy grazing cattle. We reached the larger town of Dannes next to a series of ugly clay quarries carved thoughtlessly out of the countryside and then picked up the approach road to Hardelot and the beach.

Like most of this coastline Hardelot is lined with a ribbon of attractive white sand dunes decorated with wispy tufts of grass and facing out to the sea but what makes this place especially attractive is a six hundred acre forest immediately behind the coast line. In 1905, an Englishman, Sir John Whitley, who had already developed the resort of Le Touquet, bought huge amounts of this land and immediately set about developing Hardelot as a new and fashionable resort with an aspiration to create a world centre of excellence for sports. A number of new villas were built on the seafront and in the pine forests by the famous architect Louis-Marie Cordonnier, a friend of John Whitley, who designed these vast and unique villas that today characterize the small town.

We parked the car in a side street next to the tall villas with their wooden verandas and brightly painted woodwork and walked to the beach through immaculate open spaces and well maintained streets and I was struck with something that makes Hardelot stand out from other places in France and that was the total absence of dog shit and for once we didn’t need to be careful where we walked. Mostly in France they don’t mind offensive canine poops spread all over the pavements for people to step in and slip on but here they keep this place really clean and I was pleased to see signs on the promenade that made it clear that dogs were definitely not welcome in Hardelot.

Before going to the beach we found a restaurant with pavement tables on the edge of the promenade and as Molly was fast asleep we decided not to disturb her and stop and have a drink. Only one drink mind you because one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the bar and restaurant prices in France. There seems no real logic to it – Richard and I had a 30cl bottle of beer and each one cost €3.5 but I can buy six bottles of the same beer in Carrefour for just a few cents more and these excessive charges must result in hundreds of lost customers. I certainly won’t use the bars in France as much as I would, say, in Spain or Greece.

After Molly woke we spent an hour or so on the immaculately clean beach (surprisingly not Blue Flag) and Molly built some more sand castles and decorated them with shells in between paddling in the unexpectedly warm sea and running about on the firm hard sand. But the weather began to change as clouds swooped in from the west and took the sun away and with a stiff breeze blowing it was turning chilly so we decided to call it a day and return inland where the sun was still shining.

Getting out of Hardelot proved a lot more difficult than getting in and two or three wrong turns meant that we ended up in an unfamiliar location and we had to fumble our way along the narrow lanes trying to find our way back to Longvilliers. It wasn’t that bad of course and we did get to enjoy some more views of the countryside on the way.

Back in the cottage garden where we were sheltered from the wind and the sun was still shining we drank beer and wine and ate afternoon snacks, Sally crafted a wasp trap to distract and catch the little critters that were bothering us, Richard selected logs for this evening’s barbeque and Molly played in her pool and kept us entertained with her antics. It was a lovely garden overlooking Camille’s well stocked vegetable plot and with plenty of space to run about and play in. We were beginning to like this place more and more.

In the evening we did almost the same as the previous night with another fine meal outside under the stars, played some card games and the chit-chatted our way through a few bottles of strong lager and proceeded to the gin and tonic. Sometime just before midnight the alcohol took control and losing the power of coherent speech and the loss of essential muscle control which nearly led to a nasty accident while poking the logs on the fire I decided that enough was enough and retired to bed leaving Richard to straighten up the garden behind me.

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.