Well, today was the day we had to bid farewell to continental Europe and head back to jolly old England.  We arose fairly early and, once washed and packed, which took a pleasingly small amount of time, we enjoyed our last breakfast outside the cottage.  After washing up the last of the dishes, I set about packing all of our luggage, wine and other bits into the MR2.  This is always a fun game and proved a nice challenge with all the extra goodies that we’d bought while we’d been away.  Lois was busy bringing the items out to me and checking around the cottage that we’d not forgotten anything (as well as getting photos of the inside of the cottage).

With the car packed up, we bid “au revoir” to our kind landlords and set off for the port of Calais.  We were quickly on the motorway and headed in the direction of Brussels.  It was a smooth journey and we were soon on the ring road around Brussels.  This was a testing bit of driving as two, three laned motorways converged and all of the traffic in the left motorway wanted to be over to the right and vice-versa.  With that out of the way smoothly, we cracked on towards the port to catch our ferry.  We were getting low on fuel, but decided to fill up in England as it would be cheaper.

We arrived at the well sign-posted port and joined the queues for customs.  It did amuse us that we’d spent the last 3 weeks crossing country borders every few days without showing our passports, yet, when we want to come back into our own country, there are stringent checks!  This went smoothly, but there was a funny moment when the customs officer asked if there were just two of us.  I looked behind the seats in the MR2, at the camping chairs and wine, turned back to him and said “yes”… I don’t think he appreciated our chuckles.

Once we’d got through and into the queue for the ferry, we decided to stretch our legs by getting out of the car and enjoying some lunch.  This was in the form of a fresh baguette that was still warm when we bought it, along with some sliced cheese.  We soon noticed that behind us there was an interesting looking little power boat being towed by a Dutch father and daughter in a four wheel drive.  We got chatting to them and found out that his daughter had finished 3rd in the European Championships the previous week!  They had driven from Norway via a ferry to Denmark ready to catch the ferry to England for the World Championships, being held in Nottingham this coming weekend.  After reading up on the Internet, we found that she competes in the GT-15 class, which is a 15hp engine in a boat weighing around 210kg including the driver.  Good luck to her! 🙂

We boarded the ferry just fine and were soon under way across the Channel.  We were crossing with DFDS on the way back (on the way to France, we went with P&O), and the ship wasn’t as good a quality, with various bits hanging down from ceilings, stairways closed off and various other little bits that were rusty or out of shape.  However, it was cheap!  The crossing was quite choppy, but it didn’t rain, which meant we could sit outside the whole way.

Before long, Britain was in sight as a slither of land on the horizon.  The slither became larger and larger and we approached the White Cliffs of Dover.  They were really nice to see and are a magnificent sight.  We got into the port and the ferry did another 180 degree turn to line up with the docking area.  We stayed on the deck right up until the point that we had been moored up.  This was quite cool to watch as we saw the ropes being thrown ashore and strapped into a big machine that wound them in.

We made our way with the crowds down to our car and disembarked smoothly.  I had to remember now to drive on the left hand side of the road, which I managed to do successfully.  I was quite pleased after 3 weeks of driving on the right hand side of the road, all over the continent. 🙂

We soon arrived at our overnight stay with Ju and Rich just outside of Canterbury once again.  We were welcomed with a good cup of tea and then had some wine with nibbles – yum!  After that, Rich gave us a tour of the farm, including showing off the family’s tractors.  He brought around his tractor and offered Lois a go at driving it, which she jumped at!  Rich familiarised her with the basic controls and then, before she knew it, the handbrake was released and she was off!  She went about 30 yards forward and then 30 yards back, and had a great big grin afterwards.  I accepted a go and repeated Lois’ efforts!  It was lots of fun sitting in the big bouncy seat and being in control of the tractor, but very weird that the steering was so light in such a machine!  We were both thankful that we conducted smooth journeys after Rich told us how much an average tractor was worth!

Rich then continued to show us around the farm and its various fields, whilst Ju went and got the dinner on.  After a lovely walk around the farm, with the sun going down on the horizon, we headed back to the house for tea.  We all sat down to a nice meal, with some more wine and chat.  It was nice to talk about the holiday and explain all of the smaller things that we hadn’t had chance to include in the blog.

We had a nice early night, ready for the drive back up to Sheffield the following morning.

Just a little update tomorrow, then it’s back to the realities of work.  It was quite surreal being back in the UK after all that we’ve experienced over the past 3 weeks, but it had a nice homely feeling at the same time.

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