Heading back to Bristol - by Theo

The hardest part of travelling over 1500 miles in two days by boat and car with a 17 month old toddler? Keeping her entertained in the queue to board the ferry! We were among the last to board (meaning, as is often the case, we were almost first off and cruised through immigration - no strike delays for us!) so we had to go through the full repertoire of Rosie entertaining: taking her to see the dogs in the pet lane; showing her photos on the digital camera; letting her clamber about the seats; reading her books and so on.

I think nearly everyone within a 100 metre radius had heard her yelling "Dame!" by the time we were called forward. Typically she had just done a poo and we were in the middle of changing her....On board Rosie was a dream, charming everyone from the Captain down. It was a late sail - 9pm - so after a quick run around to try and tire her out, we all crashed in the cabin, Rosie sleeping through in the travel cot we'd booked, despite the strangeness of the surroundings. She still woke up early though.

We were very lucky with the crossing, it was very smooth and as a result I wasn't troubled with mal de mer the way I had been the previous year so could help Kate out with Rosie. Much fun was had, especially with the toy doggies in shop.

We were also very lucky with Rosie's naps - she's obligingly slept well for us on the drive up to Santander from Madrid, and then napped so well in her buggy in the cabin - 2 hours - we were forced to wake her up - we then had to wake her up again from her nap in the car on the way up to Bristol from Plymouth. Still, a rested if slightly wired Rosie is way better than a cranky one. She had a huge grin for Aunty Hermione, who came with Richard and a delicious veggie lasagne to help us move in to the house in Redfield we're renting from our friend Dave. It all worked out perfectly. Even the weather is being kind.

Santander, Swimming and Semi-finals

Leaving Madrid at the relatively early hour of 9am it didn't take long to work out the air-conditioning in our Delica wasn't working properly. As the temperature rose to the thirties as we climbed up the Somosierra to the North of Madrid the car was similarly roasting, despite the 20 degrees the temperature gauge said it was. From then on it was windows down all the way on the 5 hour trip to the capital of Cantabria, Santander.Aside from our venture to the Basque country back in 2008, we'd hardly been to Spain's North coast, so we'd decided to stay there the night before our ferry to get a little taste. We'd booked into a Hotel just outside the city in Penacastillo, a village high up on a rather cragy hill overlooking the port. I'd been keen to hit one of the village beaches to the North but arriving at 2.30pm the relative cool (after Madrid) of the North was definitely only relative, and we didn't have any portable shade or suncream - in fact I'd got sunburned on the journey up - so we decided just to chill out at the Hotel, which had a pool.

So Rosie finally got her first swim in the Hotel spa pool. She wasn't exactly keen, making a bit of a face when the water rose up to her chest, but she had a good kick and clearly wasn't completely against the idea! Later we watched Spain beat Germany in the semi-final on a silent TV in our bedroom, then listened as the fireworks and car-horns erupted round the city in celebration.
Parking was free at the ferry port the next day, so after checking in we had time to wander round the city a bit and get a sense of the place. We'd noticed the day before the fact that construction was continuing all around in a country where generally speaking the property bubble has burst, and this sense of affluence was reinforced by the very posh shops and services on offer in the central district just off the sea front. The street meanwhile had their own distinctive style, rather narrower than Madrid or Barcelona's, the verticals lined with wood and covered balconies. We bought some fruit and pastries for breakfast from an old covered market, then headed back to the boat for our 18 hour voyage to Plymouth.

Kate and the Camel

After spending a comfortable night in Sheena at a services just outside Limoges, we made good time to our ferry in Dieppe, arriving with enough time for a siesta in a leafy layby and spend ages sitting in the queue waiting to be loaded. The crossing was incredibly smooth - we've yet to have a rough one (famous last words) and we actually arrived in Newhaven early. Which was lucky as they took ages unloading us as well.
My old school friend Thom lives just ten minutes from Newhaven in the beautiful village of Glynde, from where he takes the train to his teaching job in nearby Brighton. We spent an amiable evening with him in his charming country cottage and were treated the next morning to a gorgeous and hot English summer's day. We were in no hurry to hit the motorway again, so when Thom suggested a walk in the Sussex Downs behind his house we were quick to agree. We were treated to fabulous views at the top of the hill, then descended past Glyndebourne Opera House, fields of alpaccas looking rather odd shorn of their coats and a rather friendly and majestic camel.

No ordinary country walk! Sadly that was about the only perfect day weather-wise we've had since landing back in the UK, though the novelty of rain and overcast skies still hasn't quite worn off!

the big send off

It was very nice of the French to arrange not one, but two, huge firework displays to mark our departure from the continent. So sweet of them! The first, at Courseilles-sur-Mer, was on the Sunday night and was preceded by some psycopathic amateur attempts by local teenagers on the beach - throwing bangers, firing mortars and rockets at odd angles, often narrowly missing each other. Seeing as the beach in question was Juno beach, stormed successfully by Canadian troops during World War II's D-Day landings there was a strange echo to such antics. Then, at about 11, the municipal offerings kicked in, firing off from the town pier over the water for a good ten minutes. It was impressive, not least because we'd only decided to come here the day before, seeking some sun after overcast Paris skies, so they didn't have much time to put the show together! Indeed, we nearly missed it ourselves, catching it only after electing to take an evening stroll along the beach after a day of lazing about reading, playing games, swimming and sun bathing.

We took the scenic route to Cherbourg and followed the coast past the other D-Day beaches of Gold, Omaha and Utah and various memorials and cemeteries. Seeing these long stretches of sand that would have provided the allied forces with no cover at all from enemy fire as they disembarked from their pontoons was a sobering moment for us both.



However, after a beer in the fishing port of Barfleur and a crepe in Cherbourg, we were more than ready to appreciate Cherbourg's firework display before we made our way to the Ferry car park to await our passage home. Our ferry back to England from Cherbourg was early on the 15th and had been booked for some time, so the port town had had plenty of warning to plan their cordite reception for us and the send-off fireworks didn't disappoint. We have grown very fond of France, and it would seem France has grown fond of us - unless we're missing something.

Vive La France!


(Note: July 14th is Bastille Day and is celebrated across France with public firework displays. Mere coincidence, of course.)