Friday, 2 November 2012

Renovation Project - Total technological breakdown - Thursday 18th October 2012


Renovation Project - Total technological breakdown - Thursday 18th October
The big day is here; luckily we get up reasonably early. So it’s time to do the last lot of clothes washing (you may have gathered from yesterdays post that I am not the most organised of people!) once washed it’s time to go to the launderette for the final time, I also take the opportunity to go and buy our last fresh croissants, and I’m so gutted they’ve already sold all the almond ones.

Back at the house we manage to pack one suitcase each, it almost makes you wonder whether it was really worth unpacking a couple of days ago, but after approx ten seconds consideration, yes it was, it really, soooooooo was, worth it!

John is doing his usual with the bag of toiletries, i.e., planning on taking a rucksack full of lotions and potions, I am following him and unpacking it, saying we have just trawled them all around Spain and France and never used them, we really don’t need them in England where we bought them all in the first place! I’m not sure if it was my well worded reasoning that persuaded him to leave them or the fact that I was nearing hysterical ranting, but whatever, it worked and the ruck sack was left.

The house is totally secure and we have people looking after it, but John still takes his TV and surround sound to a neighbours, just to be doubly safe (they are the only things of any value in the house) I do sometimes wonder if he would take as much care of me as he does with that bloody TV and surround sound!

I send my last e-mail to my daughter, I’m not going to be able to whatsapp her, e-mail her or Skype her and due to not having a phone I can’t call either, this is starting to freak me out again!

Its 1.30pm so this is it, it’s time to go, the fridge is emptied, the electrics are turned off and the door is locked, this is such a weird feeling. We have a full car as we have had to take a full bag of rubbish with us, we had originally dropped off our rubbish with Brian and Sheila, but as we then decided to turn off the electric we have had to empty the fridge and freezer. We are now going to have to find a bin on the way to Roscoff to drop it in otherwise the car will stink of fish, not an appealing thought after a six hour ferry crossing.

The joy of living in the countryside, we soon find a bin area for a hamlet and dump the rubbish, any wild cats are going to be soooo happy!

The ferry is a lot nicer than the usual P&O Dover/Calais ferry and we settle down for drink and end up chatting to a really nice couple who have a holiday home in Plougasnou (Hi if you’re reading). The conversation is really good and the couple are really nice, but I am struggling more by the minute to concentrate, the ferry is rather bumpy (a lot bumpier than I had expected) I finally have to give my apologies and go for some air; apparently green is not a becoming colour for my face.

We try all different areas of the boat to find somewhere where I can feel a bit better and there aren’t any, I feel like absolute rubbish and I’m not sure how my stomach is remaining in the correct place (John has picked up a few bags for just in case, what a love). At least this does solve our dilemma about travelling, there is absolutely no chance we are sailing overnight, we are back to the Dover/Calais crossing with a big drive.

We meet a few people on the ferry and it’s surprising how many people actually have homes in France and travel regularly between the two countries, it also makes you wonder how Brittany Ferries can charge so much for the crossing.

The final part of the crossing is spent with a guy who lives in the Scilly Isles (always thought this was a great name for an Island) who said that he has a pilot’s license and has flown himself to Brittany, this has Johns brain in overdrive, but as much as I trust his driving, I’m not so sure about the idea of him flying us around!
Then we hear the most beautiful sound, it is the tannoy saying we can go to the car and escape the boat, I have never been so relieved to get in the car.

We disembark at Plymouth and set the sat nav for the hotel, unfortunately the sat nav thinks we are still in France and no matter how much we fiddle with it (and hit it) it will not find England. So we are in a town with no idea where the hotel is, we no longer have the IPhone so Google maps is out of the question, it is a complete and total technological breakdown. I had no idea how much we relied on technology, all of our map books are for France, so I make the obvious female suggestion of “lets pull over and ask for directions” which is met by the obvious male response of “no lets drive around, we’ll find it!” after half an hour of driving around and the realisation hits that we are not going to find it as we have abso-bloody-lutely no idea where we or it is, we finally ask two police officers for directions, it turns out the hotel is three miles out of Plymouth, in Plympton.

We arrive at the hotel and book in starving hungry to find the hotel restaurant is closed, so we ask where is the best place to go for food, Plymouth or Plympton, the receptionist tells us there is a MacDonald’s and a Sainsbury’s nearby, so we explain politely we would like to sit and eat and he directs us to Plympton where there is a Chinese, when we arrive we realise all of our bank card pin numbers are stored in our broken and lost mobile phones and we have no English money!

John manages to find a number for his business account and so after phoning the bank and transferring some money we are ready to go for a Chinese. This turns out to be a little take away and Plympton Town centre consists of one road, could this day actually get any worse!

We finally find an Indian restaurant and get something to eat, the food was lovely but it certainly wasn’t Le Crepuscule or Restaurant Tregont standard but it filled a hole.

Back at the hotel we manage to get on line and message everybody that we are safely back in England. I am knackered! 

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