And.... home!

We left Verdun by just after 09:00 - it was a case of having to, really, as the paid-for parking in the street outside the hotel kicked in then!   We bought a sandwich and some chouquettes from the patisserie across the road for our lunch, having had breakfast at the hotel. 

As we had plenty of time, we decided to do the first part of the journey cross-country, rather than going on the autoroute, and asked the SatNav to take us to Cambrai, which it duly did.  Very cross-country, but it was a lovely drive; for much of the time we were the only car on the road, and the scenery was delightful.  We arrived in Cambrai at lunchtime, and ate our sandwiches, but unfortunately it was raining so we decided not to go for a walk, but to do our shopping.  There was a Cora on the outskirts of town, so we went there and stocked up, although they didn't have any of the lovely poppy-seed bread mix I really like. 

By the time we had finished and had an ice in the cafeteria, it was time to set off, so we went straight towards Calais on the motorway.  We decided to pop into Auchan to see if they had any poppy-seed bread mix (they didn't) and one other thing, and then, as it was now less than two hours before our scheduled crossing, headed straight for the terminal.

Sadly, we didn't get home early!  There was an ominous comment that "All services were suspended" due to a train stuck in a tunnel, and the automatic check-in (I do like the way the check-ins at the French terminal recognise your car number-plate and you don't have to find your booking number) gave us a number which I think corresponded with our original booking.  So we sadly went into the terminal and sat down with the free Wi-Fi, but as we went in, the log-jam broke and people started to return to their cars who had been held up on earlier crossings.  Our crossing, N, was subsequently advertised as an hour later than we'd booked, but we noticed they called N cars along with M cars for the previous ones, and rushed off  (we were already sitting in the car reading at that stage) and got on a crossing only half an hour later.  And the Shuttle wasn't full, which we thought a bit bad as there had been such delays.  Still, the crossing was uneventful and we got home at a reasonable hour. 

And look what was waiting for us on the window-sill:

 I haven't known that particular cactus to bloom at any time, never mind in June!  The other one is very much an Old Faithful and I only keep it because it blooms so regularly in December....

And so, back to the grindstone.  This blog will be updated when I do anything interesting, either out and about in London or on a short break.