Under the pergola with Dad last year... will post the overgrown photo of the garden when we arrive....

We have now stopped at a hotel as we slept in the car last night. Foolishly we didn't book a hotel in Dover on 24th of July ! We simply forgot about school holidays. Recession was not evident by the number of travellers on the road and crossing the channel. Anyhow after Pete sang with Graffiti at Bari Garry's daughters wedding in Cambridge ( a story in itself ) we tootled off to Dover where there was no room at the Inns. We called loads and loads. Being flexible types we decided to take an earlier ferry coughed up the extra dosh ( well obviously they can spot an opportunity to charge more) and then the car battery went flat on the dockside. It was now midnight and we had been up and travelling since 6am so keeping our sense of humour was a challenge, let's say. I turned into a stroppy 5 year old and luckily Pete did the grown up thing and got it all sorted. My bloody car fridge again ( cringe cringe ) A lot of hassle for some good English cheddar when we love French cheese !

Soooooo we arrived in France at 3am drove for an hour and then pitched up next to some noxious ( p*ss all over the car park in warm weather yeeeuuurrrrk ) huge HGV's and some obnoxious Italian " drunk" drivers having a very heated debate in their cab with windows open at 4am..... oooooh I was a little irritated let me tell you ! So much so that Pete moved the "outfit" rather than suffer my shhhhhhing them to no effect all night ! So we had 3 hours delightful shut eye with a footwell full of crap ( me - old satsuma peel, a couple of lost olives, diet coke bottles, water bottle, map to check the sat nav, phone plus 2 chargers, handbag with no makeup in it, wedding wrap, 2 pairs of shoes, wet wipes and a pillow as I hate the feel of car carpet - I know I know ) Pete only had to contend with all the pedals and a bloody steering wheel and ALL his barbershop CD's. Oh yes and all through the night we had the various sonorous grumblings of our gorgeous Westminster clock !

Oh we'll look back and laugh at all this in, oooh what... 20 years !

So today we have clocked up 680 miles since yesterday which is pretty rubbish but as we are pulling the trailer equivalent of a brick house up and down a load of hills we have to be happy with it. Also the LPG car is acting up a bit ( quite stressful ) SINCE we paid £500 to get it LPG serviced. In fact it was quite funny we actually paid the LPG specialist chap £400 and gave him 3 filing cabinets which he wanted. Maybe we shpould paint Trotter and son on the trailer ! An absolute bargain considering it was running fine before the silly oaf serviced it ! As a point of interest LPG is called GPL in France...

So we are in Auxerre, an ugly place so far. To memory we have been here loads as a kid, nearly went to Nevers where we all discovered the Dunlopillow Mattresses a hundred years ago.... long story. Rambling now so will stop. Time to eat and sleep....