Back in the swing

So we got back to Brighton yesterday evening, rather later than we had hoped. The journey from La Prévière to Calais went pretty much without a hitch - just a patch of murk and rain between Boulogne and Calais. Pity the journey down hadn't been so good. The Old Bat shares the driving with me and during her stretches at the wheel I generally read. Two reasons for this: 1. I get bored with just looking out of the window at what is, for much of the time, uninteresting scenery, and 2. it saves me from biting my fingernails and complaining about her driving. This, however, can lead to upsets, as we found to our (my) cost. She drove straight past the motorway junction where she should have turned off and didn't realise until a good many miles later. This added 60 miles to our journey, as well as extra toll charges. Just to compound matters, she did it again later, but this time we only added 20 miles to the journey.

But to get back to yesterday. We have in the past eaten at Calais even though it has been a little earlier than we are used to. Back in January, the last time we made the trip, I inadvertently set off from La Prévière an hour earlier than we needed to so we arrived at Calais even earlier than usual. Our practice is to book a journey on the shuttle (through the tunnel) for a latish departure, then change it for the earliest convenient crossing when we reach the check in. Back in January that meant we arrived in Brighton early in the evening. Although we left La Prévière yesterday at our usual time, it was still early when we reached Calais and we decided to continue to Brighton before eating. Not such a wise decision as it turned out. Due to a technical problem, they we running only two trains an hour instead of three. We had to wait nearly two and a half hours. It was ten in the evening before we ate - and that was English time. Our bodies were still on French time so they thought it was eleven at night! Still, we enjoyed cheese omelettes made from eggs which our neighbour in La Prévière had collected from his hens that same morning.

Now all I have to do is catch up with emails and snail mail and accounts!