The Road to Rouen

After a false start as the result of a hesitant first time buyer at the bottom of the chain, and nine days of hand-wringing and hair-pulling, we finally exchanged contracts on Thursday and completed on Friday, which was a shock and a relief because the entire contents of our home had already been deconstructed and labelled and packed away in a warehouse in Cardiff. 

At eight-thirty on Saturday morning, Rich and I and our menagerie of seven piled into our Landrover, hitched what has turned out to be a teeny weeny caravan on the back, and waved goodbye to our faithful friend and (extremely) handy man, Skinny, as we tooted and honked our way out of the village we have loved and lived in for fourteen years. 

Any sadness we may have felt was overshadowed by (1) shock (the realisation that between us we had no job, no house, no commitments, no ties and complete FREEDOM) and (2) fear (four day trek across Europe in a nine year old Landrover, having never towed a caravan before, with seven animals on board - what could possibly go wrong?).

It all sounds much worse than it is. There is a very large dog crate on the floor in the very back of the Landrover, with cushions, water and a litter tray. We've put two of our cats - Fat Babs and Leia the Dud Bengal - in it together because they get on OK. Fat Babs is mean and detests our other cat Titty the Maine Coon, who she persecutes mercilessly in the same way and for the same reasons that I imagine Nessa from Gavin and Stacey might persecute Claudia Schiffer. Leia the Dud Bengal is just weird, and definitely 'not quite right'. I suspect her father may also be her brother. Her yowl is random and unearthly and she makes a noise that I can only describe as a cackle whenever someone sneezes or picks up a roll of Sellotape. She also has bald breasts which hang down like a cow's udder. 

Titty the Maine Coon is beautiful, highly strung and thinks she's a dog. She's in a smaller 'boutique' crate on the back seat.  Wooly and Woofta, our two ageing Bichon Frisés, are next to her. Misty the Collie and self-appointed guardian of this family, is on the bench seat next to the big crate, where she can keep a close eye on Fat Babs (who she loathes and mistrusts)lest she should try any funny business like hijack or mass murder. And Gwilym is curled up on a cushion between Rich and I in the front, like the spoilt and demanding little boy dog that he is. 

The journey from home (ex- home) to the channel tunnel at Folkestone took five hours and was encouragingly uneventful. This was mainly due to the fact that, thanks to our friendly vet, the cats had all had a pre-breakfast slug of the feline equivalent of midazolam. This renders them spaced out and trippy, man, as they squint over the top of their nictitating membranes with catty little grins on their faces. The only thing they object to is anyone speaking, at all, at which they all started yowling at us for 'harshing their mellow', so it looks like we're going to have to spend the entire journey in silence. 

The Channel Tunnel is pretty bloody fantastic. Drive on, have a snooze, drive off. My only advice would be (1) book in advance (we didn't because we couldn't), (2) don't take a caravan (we did), and (3) don't take seven animals at seventeen quid each (we did), otherwise the 30 minute train ride may cost you something like FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY POUNDS. 

En France. Headed south west on the wrong side of the road to Rouen, with stops for weed and ball-throwing, them after a confusing detour along the banks of the Seine in Rouen, managed to get as far as Alençon before calling it a day. Found a quite spot at a service station, piled into the caravan and sort of slept, on and off and fully clothed amidst a heaving pile of snoring and darting mammals, for six hours or so. I hate camping. And I hate caravans. 

Miles driven: 440

Craps in Landrover: 0

Craps in caravan: 0