Off we go! 7th October 2009

We are finally on our way! The white cliffs of Dover (or rather the soggy grey lumps of hillside) are beginning to fade into the distance in a meaningful way. I would like to claim a kind of nostalgic feeling for this moment once aboard our hopefully trusty SeaFrance vessel. However, as it was drizzling hard and Tegan was threatening to climb out of her highchair in search of entertainment beyond the salade nicoise it sort of passed in a “there goes England” kind of way.One hour or so later we are in an even wetter Calais – how come the French always get to complain about our weather! Torrential is the best word to describe the wet stuff coming from the sky as we surfed our way along the Autoroute towards Lille, and our posh hotel for the first night.Andy had the onerous task of taking the wheel, while I thought about the next place to do a nappy change as Tegan had thoughtfully waited until just before getting in the car to pop out a triumphant whopper of a pooh. Alas, she had fallen sound asleep while I considered the options, and only woke up just before we arrived at “La Howerderie http://www.lahowarderie.com/.So, we arrived at our plush pad of luxury with one rather tired and irritable toddler, complete with very sore bum. Not quite the “at last we’re here” fall on the huge bed with a large beer kind of moment I had imagined! However, all was soon solved by discovering the “Au Calice” bar and pizzeria down the road. We rejected the posh restaurant at the hotel in favour of the “not real pizza” described to us by Madame at the hotel. The pizza turned out to be excellent and washed down with a couple of Belgian beers each, we were warmed up and calmed down enough to try our French on the locals. The bar man and woman (who had twin 5 year old daughters) seemed to understood what was needed for a small, travelling and pretty tired Tegan, and the two blokes at the bar were probably too drunk to notice our agrammatical French anyway.We left there an hour or so later to put little T to bed and go and drink champagne in the bath (what a treat!).