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Published: October 1st 2009
Wednesday 9th September - To France
I leave home at a very civilised 9a.m. to head for Calais and the ferry. I’ve decided to drive down to Beaune, it’s years since I’ve used the ferry and driven in France. I would have liked to have gone through the Channel Tunnel but the ferry is a much cheaper option. I’ve decided to break my journey and stop over near Calais. I’m heading for a B&B recommended by Nick,
Les Fuchsias in the village of
Bois-en-Ardres about 10 miles from
Calais. And 10 miles of driving in France will probably be enough practice for today!
The journey down to Dover was completely uneventful and checking in and getting onto the
Seafrance ferry was a lot more straight forward and stress free than I seem to remember. It’s while I’m on the ferry that I realise how completely unprepared for this journey I am! I only remembered at the last minute to sort out the insurance and breakdown cover for the car but as soon as I get on the ferry I have some literature shoved in my hand reminding me about driving in France. I don’t have a GB sticker or
headlight adapters and it became law in France about a year ago that the car driver must have a high visibility jacket within reach (not in the boot) in case the car breaks down. I always thought France was the home of several famous fashion houses.
And now they’ve passed a law requiring everyone driving a car to have a florescent green jacket?!??!? I’m a coward and Seafrance have convinced me that as soon as I drive onto French soil without a GB sticker I’ll be thrown into prison and my car will be crushed. And the only way I can stop this happening? A visit to the very expensive Seafrance shop on the ferry. I dutifully buy a GB sticker and headlight adapters but the rebel in me decides to “Stick it to the Man” - I shall not be wearing a florescent green jacket!
The ferry docks and we disembark. I don’t spot the French police impounding any cars for not having GB stickers and I drive off, on the correct side of the road, in search of Bois-en-Ardres. I manage to get as far as Bois-en-Ardes but I can’t find the hotel {<em style="font-size:
1.4rem;">Note to Francis: That’s a really nice sign you’ve got pointing in from the main road. Do you think you should also get a sign for the hotel itself?} and I need to ask directions. This is where my lack of preparation shows up again. It would have been a good idea to have learned just a little bit of French before setting out. How useless am I at languages? I really wish I’d tried harder to learn some! My attempts to ask directions are just a random selection of French and Spanish words. My language skills were so good that at one point I was asking directions to Les Fuchsias whilst stood across the road from the hotel and still couldn’t make myself understood!
My hosts are Francis, a former hovercraft pilot, and Bernadette, who makes wonderful home-made jams.
Les Fuchsias is a really good reason for not staying at a motel. It’s a small guesthouse in a small French village. All the other guests there seem to be regular visitors who always use this guesthouse as their stopping-off point when crossing the Channel. Francis has lots of stories to tell and is very helpful - he finds
out for me that the café in the village is open {
apparently this doesn’t always happen} and I go off in search of food. Again, my lack of French language is going to let me down. Two days ago I was in a bar in Spain but that bar was called Arfur’s Bar and was run by Paul from Millwall. How much does that contrast with this French village. I decide that smiling nicely at everyone and looking stupid will be a lot more successful than shouting slowly in English. But everyone in the café is friendly and I manage to order some food and a beer. Everyone who arrives in the café comes and shakes my hand and says “bonjour” - that probably made my arrival seem really unfriendly. But everyone is friendly towards me - perhaps they’d like to change the channel on the TV so we could all watch the England/Croatia match? Maybe not, that might be pushing my luck too far.
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Nick James
non-member comment
Fashion tip: for future reference, they let us choose yellow or orange if we prefer (lucky people that we are!), just as long as it's fluoresecent. Naturally one is not expected to use it, and most of them are stuffed in the pocket in the back of front seats still in their plastic bags. I just hope that you had a full set of replacement bulbs and a warning triangle - if you were missing all of that as well, you were a very lucky man indeed to escape back to Blighty.