back into the blue

The rain and wind were rattling the tiles as some light started to disperse the gloom of our last day on French Soil. I was realising that our waterproofs were in the motor, parked up behind the Sorbonne Oceanography building, some 100 metres away. Were we to be condemned, at Ibis chucking out time, to mooching round Roscoff until our lunchtime booking became active? No. Not us. 

By the time we had raised ourselves from our couches the rain had abated leaving just a keen wind blowing out of clearing skies, so we left the comfort of our suite and took off westwards to suck up a final few breaths of salty sea air amongst the granite shore landscapes hereabouts. And, er, of course, secure a petit dej… This last was achieved in the usual male dominated bar (top flight double expressi paired with a jug of scolded lait) supplemented with selected top quality pastries from the nearby boulangerie or pâtisserie, this time in the sleepy village of Cléder.

Thus fortified we went off to where the land gives out to the sea, on this stretch of coast, typified by scattered granite boulders, reefs and tors, gritty sands and numerous bays and headlands. Never mind where we went. We just went. We walked a bit and enjoyed the fresh blue skies one last time, plus the frequent rainbows. All very lovely and impressive. I can see why folk want to holiday hereabouts. I have concluded the further west one goes the whiter the sands become and the larger the granite boulders as well, some of them are vast. We contented ourselves for this pre-lunch jolly to going just eighteen miles out from Roscoff, where the granite sweeps are a little more modest. Mme Melling noted a ship that was clearly our ferry,  approaching Roscoff from the direction of Blightey, so anyone who had taken up the ferry company's offer of an early loading would have been sorely disappointed, condemned to loiter hours on the quayside with only the limited-if-any facilities of the so-called passenger terminal to ease the time away…

Ourselves, having largely avoided the odd rogue showers, returned to Roscoff with rosy cheeks and wreathed smiles, to be the first into Le Surcouf at the stroke of midday for our lunch time repast. Très Bon! We drank cider with it, for a change. 

Our appetites thus sated, we hurried off to beat the 1400 last booking-in deadline for our ferry back to Blightey. Hmmmmm. We arrived at 1300. It took at least two hours to proceed from the collection point into the ship itself and then a further two hours before the vessel made any sort of move to get going. For reasons beyond our control we were advised. Whose ship is it that is beyond our control we wondered. I wondered if the fact that the time on board is British Time and that British Time is an hour behind of French Time, that once on board under the impression the ship would sail at 1530 French Time, the punters then came to realise that the ship would be sailing at 1530 British Time i.e. an hour later. Do you follow? Well. That is what happened in effect. It sailed British Time, Greenwich Mean Time! The Captain agreed to put his foot down so as to get us into Plymouth as close to 2100 GMT as could be managed. And indeed, we were in twenty minutes before his estimate. In, yes, tied up no doubt, but not 'off' by any means. 

But my, it was a rough crossing. We had taken the precaution of booking ouselves a day cabin and we got allocated the foremost outside slot on the port side, with a window no less (porthole if you like) where we witnessed the foaming seas and pounding thumps and crashes of the breaking waves on Pont Aven's bow doors and forward superstructure at close quarters, but in comfort. The ship was fairly well peopled with travellers, it being the last crossing of the year from Roscoff, yet there were surprisingly numerous French clients heading for our darkling shores… we remained largely aloof in our quarters until the guttering lights of Plymouth docks suggested we might make our way down to deck four ready to drive off to have it out with HMRC.

And so we sat in the motor, on deck four, amongst the long lines of expectant travellers, in their various cars, vans and people carriers… for an hour. Finally we managed to get off the ship, only to join another immense and mostly stationary queue of vehicles edging its way to passport control. 

So it was that we finally arrived back at the Devon estates, not on the day we had set out to reach them but on the Monday morning. Our documentation had all been in order so the exhausted chap in the exit booth almost waved us through with a sigh of relief. The vehicle checking station was closed and shuttered, the customs officers there obviously preferring normal office hours rather than stocking their mess with confiscated hams, wines, sausages and other recently declared illegal party goods. Our illicit walnuts, quinces and garlic bulbs thus escaped detection, not to mention our butter, salami butts and raspberry jam.

Notwithstanding the dragged out ship trip, this return goes down generally as a bobby-dazzler; we shall no doubt do it again in a similar fashion next year, when the son-and-heir might be availing himself of the opportunity to travel with the aged parents once more, circumstances allowing.