Bottom gear

Over the last few days I have driven some 1200 miles through France and it has left me most definitely feeling my age. It was also not ideal conditions for driving - howling winds, heavy rain and much of the driving in darkness.

I now have much greater appreciation for British roads. French motorways are laden with either tolls or potholes.  They seem narrower and are definitely less well lit.  I really missed cats eyes.   The rain was torrential.  If I drove up behind a large lorry, the spray was horrendous, but overtaking large lorries on dark narrow motorways makes me feel a bit sick.  I have to coach myself past them with a little pep talk on how much better it will be when I am over it – the kind of pep talk I haven’t had to go through since my divorce. 

On the return journey, speeds of over 65 miles an hour in the fully loaded small van felt unstable.   When I got home and was on the M2, I realised I was bombing along, overtaking lorries without a second thought.  I get to France and I turn into Mr Bean behind the wheel.  Going through one extremely narrow section of roadworks made me feel so sick I nearly had to stop, bribe someone else to drive the car whilst I hid in the back - but my pigeon French isn’t up to that kind of request and if you want to get back into the UK these days, lurking in the back of vans isn’t the best move.

I also suspect that my age has something to do with it.  My brother and I used to laugh at dad, who won't drive in the dark and would leave hours earlier than he had planned because he said he must get home 'before the rains get in'.  Now I am starting to agree with him.  Driving in rain is now so tiring, that I couldn't face a 30 mile trip tonight to visit a friend.  I don't think I am the greatest of drivers, but I always used to enjoy driving and have been on road trips covering thousands of miles and loved every minute.  It could have been the reason for the journey which got to me so much, but if I win the Euro lottery, I am definitely going to consider getting a chauffeur to drive me around.  

I forgot to take CDs as well, so the only company I had was French radio.  I listened to music stations until I got completely sick of both Sam Smith and Uptown Funk and then listened to talk radio, conning myself that I was improving my French by repeating what they were saying - or at least what I thought they had said. My final entertainment was when the van was searched at Dover.   I had expected the first question to be where had I been and why, but he asked me where I lived, so it threw me.  I took a while to answer, which made me worry I looked guilty and I then started stuttering.  I am the kind of person who feels guilty when I walk through nothing to declare with nothing to declare, so being searched makes me want to show everything to the customs guards from my few purchases of French wine and the contents of my luggage to the length of my intestines.  He was a very nice customs guard and even helped me manoeuvre the van out of the parking spot ... I say that as if it were a hydraulic truck, not a car-based van. 

I got home a bit less keen on driving and a lot less keen on driving in France.  The French have got two things right though, their service stations are better than ours - cleaner, better food, and the price of the fuel is much cheaper.  Diesel is €1.18 a litre (£0.87) in towns and €1.35 (£1.00) on motorways (petrol is €1.22 / €1.45).  I topped up my wine rack as well. It would seem rude to spend a weekend in France and not have a glass or two of wine, even if you do have to wait until you get home to enjoy it.  I opened one of my bottles when I got home.  I was so freaked out by rainy motorways that before I knew it there was only one glass left in the bottle.  I'm pretty sure that the extremely low prices mean lower alcohol content and the consumption is in no way reflective of excessive alcohol consumption.  I did briefly feel bad about the amount that I had drunk, but then I looked at the amount left in the bottle, and it looked so lonely that I drank that as well – there’s a lot to be said for not having to drive in the morning.