Vingt-deux and counting ……

Tonight will be my twenty-second channel crossing since we bought the house - some 54 weeks ago.

They’ve ranged from the memorable to the unremarkable to the ones I’ve quite honestly forgotten. Both cars know their way from the house to Le Havre so well that I can take my foot off the accelerator at exactly the correct point to slow down to exactly the correct speed by the time we get to the speed limits. Quite sad ….

Memorable crossings:

• The force 7 wind coming out of Le Havre before Christmas. I love rough and bouncy crossings – Barbara less so ….
• Sitting on the deck in the hot sun coming out of Le Havre in June. We managed that for nearly two hours until we picked up the British weather mid-channel.
• The utterly beautiful morning when I left Portsmouth with the cats in July. The sun was bright and clear and the sea flat and all the stress seemed to melt away as the Norman Arrow fast boat sped out of the harbour.

Most of our crossings have been on the Côte d’Albatre (LD Lines) on Portsmouth-Le Havre and we got to the point of being recognised by the bar staff. Ironically the only time we used a different route (Dieppe-Newhaven in January 2011) the Côte d’Albatre had been moved onto this route temporarily so we said hello to the bar staff again!

The best crossings have been on the fast catamaran Norman Arrow, this has been dogged by bad luck and two collisions that caused significant damage (not when we were on it I should add). At present this boat doesn’t appear on the 2011 schedule which would be a great loss. We’ve signed up for LD Lines Advance Purchase scheme again which gives us crossings at big discounts – after an abrupt withdrawal from the Dover-Boulogne route and a reduction in the Portsmouth-Le Havre crossings I do hope that LD are financially stable after paying them in advance for my crossings.

So, back to La Basse Cour and two new things this week: I have a language assessment at a training company in Vannes for French lessons and I’m hoping to re-start my hockey career as a “jouer étrangére” with a French club. Also a visit to the Mairie, a meeting with M. Palou the architecte and another car full of plants to put in.