Did feel a lot better this morning - still not 100% sure I'm not getting a cold, but a good night's sleep did help. So after breakfast I popped into the Aldi, which was just next door to our overnight stop (which we discovered, when we went up to the services, had much nicer places further up in the aire, but I think they may have all been taken last night). Anyway, Aldi only had Cristal beer (my current favourite Belgian beer that I only discovered at the start of this holiday) in tins, and when it came to the checkouts, the queues were so massive that I didn't bother.
We decided that, because we were in no hurry to get to Calais, we would drive south along the Belgian coast, following the tram between Knokke and De Paan. It's a pretty amazing line - now in a dedicated space, now running along the street, and even, in one place, running through woods and sand dunes! The road - the N34 - crosses it eleventy billion times, so sometimes it's on your right, sometimes on your left, and sometimes you're right on top of it. I think it's now on my bucket-list. Almost all the trains went the whole way, but there seems to be a separate branch to Ostende. The road goes through Zeebrugge, and there was a cruise ship in the harbour, which was rather nice. Not a that I really fancy going on one of those huge modern cruise jobs, but they are still interesting to see.
We stopped once for lunch, rather early but the Swan Whisperer wanted to scramble up the dunes and look at the sea, and I badly needed to spend a penny, and by the time we'd done that, it was pretty well lunchtime. We stopped again for diesel somewhere in the Ostende area - forget exactly where - and then carried on down the N34 until E reached De Paan, and then got on to the A16 as we crossed the border into France, and it was only about half an hour from there to Cité Europe.
As we crossed the border, all the variable message signs were saying you must have an ETA to travel to the UK, but we were quickly able to reassure ourselves that this was for visitors, not natives! I also found out that it doesn't apply to Irish passports, so my daughter and grandsons don't need to worry.
I did a shopping in the big Carrefour, while the SW put on a load of washing in the facilities they provide in the car park. We had to wait while other people's washing and drying finished, but ours got done in the end. Meanwhile I had kindly bought liver for supper, which the Swan Whisperer loves. I don't know why it is so difficult to get in the UK - it's not my best thing, but this was surprisingly nice, served with mashed potato, cabbage (I didn't have time to do a more sophisticated vegetable) and a sauce made by deglazing the pan in which I'd cooked the liver with tomato paste, garlic paste, and the water over which I'd steamed the potatoes and cabbage (seasoned up, of course). It was surpringly good. Followed by the end of the redcurrants with yoghurt.
We had, of course, moved up to the aire here at Blériot-Plage - the next-door campsite is fully open, of course, as it is July - and we are ready to cross tomorrow morning. We will head to the terminal for about 09:45, and hope to get a crossing earlier than the one we booked on, but there have been disruptions today, so we may not.
But, for once, this isn't the end of our adventures, as we are spending the weekend in Sussex to attend a Barn Dance on Sunday afternoon in aid of the local church. We had planned to go back to London on Sunday evening, but it would be a logistical nightmare to get to the dance - across the fields from No 6 - and load the car, and, etc, so we think we'll head back to town very early on Monday morning, getting the car as loaded as possible, with just overnight things to pack on Monday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment