Days 86 & 87 – Back home..

Almost 6 hours of autoroute driving took me to Caen, 80 euros of tolls in a class two vehicle, to add to the 30 from yesterday. I’m not sure I’d say that it was worth it, but the alternative takes four hours longer, so really wasn’t an option.

I’m not a fan of driving for this amount of time at all, but it was necessary, and made easier to having BBC Radio 4 and World Service, along with a few podcasts to listen to (The Ashes approaches..).

At Caen I went to the excellent V and B beers on the north side of town. It has a huge range of beers, mainly from Normandy, but also Belgium and France, so I stocked up. It actually has a very attractive bar as well, but I still had some driving to do. So many hours in the driving seat aggravates my back also, in turn bothering the sciatica/ nerve issues that remain from the bike fall..

There’s a good place for campervans at Coleville-Montgomery, just a few kilometres from the ferry. I’m sure it’s busy for most of the year, but this night I was the only one there. It was a quick walk with the dog, then settle in for a quiet evening in drizzly and relatively warm weather at 11C.

Soon after 6 I was away to check-in. There seems so much to remember these Brexit-Covid times we live in; passenger locator forms, tests, new certificate for the dog. In the end everything went smoothly, though does cost more than twice as much as it did a year ago..

I read during the five and a half hour crossing. I am an admirer of Valancourt publishers who specialise in horror. Their collection of short stories from around the world hugely entertained me as the vessel rocked around. Despite arriving into Portsmouth on time at 1:15 pm, it took me 8 hours to get home. Passport control into the UK was extremely slow, but I had been warned. Eventually away, and up north via Oxford, a journey I’ve done so much in my last few years working in education, and at a roughly similar time, leaving after running a seminar at about 4 pm. It means of course, running into rush hour around Birmingham, and an M6 closed in Cheshire. I decided to head north east, and it worked out better, as that closure stayed in place, heading over what had been a snow bound A66 just a couple of days ago in Storm Arwen, back to a freezing house at 9:15 pm.

I’m always pleased to get home, having missed the routes I take regularly around the village, and the morning after was a top quality winter day, to make those three days of travel all worthwhile. Give me a few days, and I’ll be on with the plans for the next trip..

A highway of diamonds with nobody on it.

Back home, and the Strava segment the dog stands on, appropriately has that Dylan quote as it’s title. Named by me of course. There’s been a few of them this course.

Some stats in due course, distance and expenditure etc, but I’ll finish with Marco Polo’s deathbed words,

I have not told half of what I saw.