On we go 8th October 2009

The only downside to this expensive hotel (which we were happy to splash out on thanks to a pretty generous leaving present from my work colleagues) was the 17 Euro buffet breakfast (each)the next morning – how much for a few bread rolls and mini croissants?! Should’ve gone back to last night’s bar and the boulangerie opposite it– note to anyone reading this (I hope there are at least a couple of you) – breakfast is a rip off (the rest of the hotel though is lush). Once packed up (we have a LOT of stuff so this takes time) we started off down south, me driving, Andy navigating. Noticed a slight groaning from the car as we went into LeClerc supermarket to get petrol, Andy mentioned something about bearings (pretty sure he wasn’t talking about his sense of direction), but I am sure it will all be fine.......At least the weather is all nice again. Felt a bit like I was in Lincolnshire as it was all flat, but with pointy houses. All very nice and picture postcard, for a while at least until Andy pointed out the “Salon Erotique” (or something like that) billboard on the side of the road– not sure if the villages around Lille have some hidden secrets or if this was just the work of some over excited entrepreneur who hadn’t done his market research very well. Onwards and southwards, pit stop at an overpriced Aire (Tegan found some snails to play with so was happy), and a quick call to the first WWOOFing hosts to check in and get directions. Apparently she told Andy something about 14 hair pin bends, I shall wait to see exactly what this means.....I got a call form the ditsy estate agent at home asking whether we had a gas certificate (the one that she has two copies of, somewhere, I hope) – hope this is not a bad sign. Our next bit of joyful travelling took us round Paris,..........I devised a careful route around the outside, thought I had a good idea of the road numbers and Andy tried to follow my directions. Tegan amused herself by saying goodbye to everything she could see “bye mummy coat, bye plane, bye Teggie sock” and so on. Amazingly we only took one wrong turn, but what a nightmare! Do French town planners have a part of their job description that entails randomly changing road numbers, and in collaboration with the map designers start one road, make it disappear and then reappear on another part of the map. The whole journey round Paris was a complete mystery to me, and I had the map. We eventually decided Orleans should be the place to stop for the night and found ourselves a nice basic Formula 1 “hotel”. Bit like an aeroplane in it’s compactness, but did the job. And there was a nice place serving moules frites across the road. Tegan had her first taste of moules and seemed to love them (soft , squishy and not that dissimilar from snails I suppose). She is also showing a bit of a passion for French bread.....