THE RAIN IS DRIVING HARD against the hotel windows as the first chink of grey dawn turns up at Kyriad Vannes. It transpires that Adam's bed was not supplied with an adequate amount of bedding, which makes me a little vexed on his behalf, these things should not happen. We conclude that it is no reason to trash the room, nor rule this establishment out as a stop-over in the future. You see, it proves well situated for when we are forced to catch a daytime sailing from Roscoff to Plymouth, the situation that we are addressing this very day. And answering rather well we think.So heavy is the downpour that I volunteer to go first and bring the motor as close to reception as possible so that the rest of the party can stay near enough dry. I am like that: selfless. The roads are mercifully almost empty so we make it up to the main northern road going west (Rennes to Morlaix etc) in about an hour and a half. Raining hard most of the way it is – although it isn't when we break for p'tit déj at Châtelaudren, a lively place for the time of day. Good and final croissants/pain au chocolade/pain aux raisins, what have you.
Our arrival in Roscoff is well before the midday chimes ring out… we cower under awnings as it continues to throw it down… Mme Melling secures a sack of onions as requested by landlord Robert at The Grove which we tuck away in the boot far from from the prying eyes of HM Customs and Excise.
We all have the best onion soup of the entire holiday (OK, the only onion soup of the entire holiday) followed by diverse dishes of perfectly cooked fish (I had the marmite). Le Surcouf is back on form (you will recall we failed to get our mains last time we patronised Le S).Then off to embarkation on our usual vessel, Armorique. The sun is out and it is lovely. Mme Melling and self are almost out of time with our 90 day 'visitors' limit and all that nonsense, but we are treated civilly by French customs, foreigners that we now are, our passports are stamped in the correct manner (I check).
We sail into the choppy waters of La Manche; a stiff breeze is getting up so I have the flight deck to myself for quite a while… But an hour into the crossing all passengers are ordered below decks as it begins to rock and roll. The family retreat to their day cabin and as our american cousins often say, we hunker down. I am perfectly at ease with the ship's motions myself, but the offspring is not quite so. No one gets sick though. By the time we go top side to see Eddystone winking the rain is gathering it's forces once again.
Sure enough, it is raining fit to bust in Plymouth. After sitting expectantly on the car deck for an hour or so, (no explanation for this delay is forthcoming; I am beginning to think it is a seafaring tradition, along with the other tradition we seem to have been subjected to, of being amongst the last to be let off the boat… mutter mutter) la pluie is just another issue to put up with. Our passports are meticulously examined, as they damned well should be. No sign of anybody with the slightest interest in what we might be bringing into the motherland however. After all, it is Sunday night, not very nice, and a bit late to be out troubling any returning natives. It is pelting down.
Before we have reached Tavistock we are almost brought to a standstill by it. By the time we are through Tavistock we are in moonlight. Such are the vagaries of our British weather. When we arrive at Bullsmead Towers we do a quick unpack and sink that longed for mug of tea.
That's it. The saga is over, back safe, with the pleasure of travelling with the son-&-heir once more. We get to our beds, good beds, warmed with an introductory hot water bottle apiece.
If you have read the whole set, well done —but you do need to get out more y'know… I thank you for your interest. And I thank JBH for his rendition of our maritime starting and finishing post:
footnote: see below the planned route back. Some of it was compromised by navigational issues resulting in not getting to the coast before Séte, and some more of it was messed up by routes barrées as alluded to in the account above.
Don't bother going over it (as if you were going to) —I include it here for my own reference.
