It's Chriiiiiiiiiistmaaaaaassss! So the song goes.
And for us that meant Time To Move. We knew it was risky, but we decided we would try and get to France in order to celebrate the Gonzales year with...the Gonzales's. We randomly decided that we would start the journey overnight in order to make our 2pm ferry from Portsmouth instead of staying the night before in a local hotel. This was mostly because we wanted to finish school on the Friday, see if an overnight drive was feasible, and try a flyby on the way. We achieved these things, but only just.
But first, the end of term (as I've been so slack at blogging). We finished up the school year with beautiful walks from home, preparing for Christmas, baking with Oma, and SO MUCH Panetone (El Puma's fave)
And then we went to bed at 20h. Then we didn't sleep. Then we got up at 00.30 and then we left at 01.30. We drove. Note to us: don't leave the day after the end of term, especially if you are driving overnight. BUT, at 6am I was in the passenger seat and something about our route to Portsmouth suddenly clicked...Fona and Jelo were not far away, having arrived not long previously from Jordan. We were coming off the motorway anyway at their exact junction, and with just a 20 mile detour, we were able to perform a masked flyby and see the growing family. No star to direct us, just our modern GPS that led us to the new (for us) baby. Delightful.
It was on the ferry over that we learned that borders were closing due to the new fast-spreading COVID-variant, and we had made it over by the skin of our teeth, and the next day we learned that the ferry after us had been turned back.
We were SO happy to have made it to France, which lasted about the length of the trip from Caen on the coast to Nantes (3.5 hours, or 2.75 hours if you're driving in the dead of night after the curfew has started in the middle of winter after 21 hours of travelling). And that's because we arrived at 2am to a totally broken heating system. The house was ice-cold (no joke: colder inside than outside) and we were all crying. Sheer exhaustion meant we all slept, but it was a miserable night and even more miserable morning as El Puma phoned about 30 plumbers only to be told it was a) Sunday so no visit b) a heat pump that we had so no visit or c) a particular type of heat pump which meant no visit.
A lack of hot shower must have really got to El Puma as he booked us into a hotel that night, and for the first time in about 2 days we were toasty warm. Here, walking from the car to the hotel past the centre of Nantes, the heart lightening with each step towards heat!
But we had friends from Paris visiting and we had to go back to the house, so we bundled up well, found hot water bottles and extra blankets and a heater or two, and spent a wonderful 2 days in the stone-cold house with our friends. Honestly, it didn't seem to bother the kids, and we found other ways to warm up (thanks wine!).
The frozen house:
Eva was desperate to see the 'machines', so we went down in to the centre to visit them. The place was a frozen wind tunnel, but it made the house seem all the warmer when we got back (about 12 degrees by then). We'll try again in the summer in better conditions!
The whole experience wasn't quite what we'd hoped to offer our friends, but it just shows that being together is sometimes all it takes. Plus, Christmas is coming!
