Well it’s touring time again and off to the South of France in our new “Dora the Explorer” caravan, bought so that the soundtrack of the trip wouldn’t be Richard shouting “For F**ks Sake” every time he bashed his knees or toes on cupboards or the corner of the bed. So, Dora is 8 inches wider and 1 metre longer…Thats never going to cause any problems is it???
Onto the ferry to St. Malo, only a 12 hour crossing but its unbelievable how much crap entertainment they can manage to squeeze into one short evening. Firstly, the singer in her obligatory spangly top and fake leather trousers whooping and cheering herself along encouraging the audience to do any actions to match her songs and only succeeding with one small child hyper on coke sliding on his knees across the dance floor…someone please just throw me overboard now!
Then the magician…where do I start? after prizing two volunteers from the audience (I say that in the loosest sense of the word) he starts his card trick, counting 10 cards into the first ones hand and the same number into the second one, except for the fact it was blatantly obvious that he’d taken 3 cards from the first pile and put them in the other. He then spent the next 10 minutes pretending to magically & invisibly transport them from one person to the other…low and behold at the end of the painful arm waving there was 13 in one pile and 7 in the other! Now this has nothing to do with my brief past life as Debbie McGee (I was more guinea pig than magicians assistant) that I could work it out, even the man at the back of the room with the Labrador could see what was going on. Time to call it a night!
And so off to St. Malo, a beautiful walled city where, like a lot of France, there is very little English spoken (oh how I wish my French for beginners course hadn’t been cancelled) so the trusty French phrasebook it is, sneakily taking a glance at it when Richard’s not looking. So when the waiter arrived after our meal I could blurt out “excuse moi monsieur l’addition s’il vous plait” to get the reply “oui Madame” very quickly followed by Richard saying “where the hell did that come from?” How smug do I feel?…it didn’t last long.
As we leave St. Malo for the long trip to Narbonne its mainly motorways, toll booths and rest stops (imagine the distance from Scotland to Brighton). Now, being stuck in the middle lane of the motorway with an extra wide van is no picnic and squeezing through the toll booths must have been too much for my “not so” bilingual brain because when we were stuck there, as the toll ticket kept spitting itself back out at me, I had to press the assistance button. The voice from the concrete post said “Allo” and the words “sprechen sie Deutsch?” came out of my mouth! I just took one look at Richard he was shaking his head in disbelief saying “you know, sometimes it’s like I’m with someone from Mensa and other times its Forrest Gump!” I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended by the comment…I’m going with flattered…I like Forrest Gump!
Eventually arriving at Narbonne and now the extra long caravan is the challenge, its ok I’ll tuck it right in beside the bushes and under the tree…not such a wise decision as it happens.
12.45am – I was awoken from a lovely dream by an almighty clatter which sounded like someone breaking into the caravan, I had a quick look through the van in my bleary “no glasses” eyes then peered outside to see the seats and table all blown over, so time to get up, fold everything up and pop it under Dora for safe keeping…that will be fine now. Oh no, for the next hour I slept with my hands over my ears with the most irritating noise so 2.15am, Richards awake and we’re taking the awning down (I might add this is the first time he’d woken up!). It must have been that squeaking on the side of the van…Great all sorted now. Alas not…2.45am after realising that it was actually the tree I’d oh so carefully squeezed the van under earlier that day that is banging on the roof I’m out again, wedged between the bushes hanging from a branch trying to bend it away from the caravan so that I can at least get a few hours sleep whilst Rip Van Winkle is peacefully oblivious to the goings on outside…All sorted!
And so to Martigues, a day of non-stop sunshine so off to the pool we go (just as a side note in France lots of places insist on “proper” swimwear for men – so it’s budgie smugglers as far as the eye can see) after a while I wonder where Richard has gone to – he has a habit of wandering – then I see him, head bobbing and hands waving to his music wandering around the pool, ahh bless him, then it dawns on me if he’s waving his hands where’s the Ipod? just as he turns around and I see it wedged in the crack of his arse! That’ll be the dettol wipes out when we get back then!
Oh great, the gale force wind is back – but not ones to let it put us off, we’re staying put at the pool, that is until I see Richards shoes fly past me, followed by his glasses, followed by his hat, followed by a small child on a lilo (I am serious) it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages, it was like a really bad version of the Generation Game. I’m allowed to laugh it only landed on the concrete its not like it flew over the fence and down the cliff! I so wish I’d been quicker to get a picture.
Maybe time to move onto somewhere less windy…
Au revoir for now
Middle Seat Passenger 