Day 3, Monday - France or bust

woke at 4.30 am full of anxiety but lay quietly until 6 when Louise woke. At least David had recovered. Got all our gear packed and got off on our planned ETD of 8am. We made good time and got to the services just before Bristol by 10.25.
Stayed only to feed and water and got away at 11am, left the M4 10 minutes later and then ... crowded roads, village bottlenecks, roadworks, Louise needing a wee. Jo was very raggy and didn't sleep, both of them had colds, the grizzling adding to the tension in the car. Touch and go whether we got to the boat in time - eventually we were saved by the last few miles to Portsmouth being motorway and got there with 10 minutes to spare.
We were late into Le Havre because of a wreath laying ceremony halfway across which fascinated the girls and prompted the usual unanswerable questions from Louise.
It was late by the time we got to the campsite and we started to put up the tent which was beginning to look as though it had 10 sides and twice as many poles as when we packed it. We had an audience of experienced campers eating leisurely evening meals and loving the unexpected entertainment. Joanna wouldn't stop crying, and a woman in a caravan offered to look after them while we wrestled the tent into something resembling shelter and it was 11pm before we were ready enough to put them to bed. Only then did a jobsworth rock up and tell us we'd pitched in the wrong place and would have to move - did we? did we 'eck as like!

Expenses £
Petrol 4.00
Services 0.97
book 0.95

Expenses Francs
lunch on boat 26.00
dinner on boat 20.00
Cigarettes 4.00
Site fees 12.00

Day 1 - Saturday, travelling or not?

We didn't set off until 11.30, a serious tactical error. The roof rack was hard to pack and lash down, and no, we hadn't practised that part of it. We got as far as the Burtonwood services on the M62 when the radiator boiled over. An RAC man arrived after about an hour, flushed it out and we set off again. A few miles down the road - same thing. This time we waited for 1 hour 15 mins before another RAC man turned up, only to tell us that the radiator is duff and we need a new one - terrific! All this time the girls have been really good, maybe oblivious to the situation, only vaguely wondering why we aren't moving.

We limp to the nearest service area to be told now that not only has the radiator gone but we need a new cylinder head gasket - even more terrific. The mechanic further complicates matters by informing my husband, David (who doesn't drive and knows less than nothing about cars), that "You can't just change it, you have to skim the head first" - What?! Oh and by the way, "We can't do that until Monday, sorry!"

OK, so now what to do? Go home? How negative! Limp on and hope to stay with a friend further down the motorway and chance getting it done on Monday? Not an option. Phone the RAC again? Why not? So now the third RAC man was on the way, leaping into his little van, (they were little in those days), and comes to look at the car. By now it's the most looked at car on the motorway and if he does that thing of pursed lips, sharp intake of breath and shaking head, I might thump him, because I'm fed up and it's damned hot.

But no, my hero knows of a garage who will fix it tomorrow. But, I say, it's Sunday tomorrow. He's very matter-of-fact "They work a 7 day week", he assures me. Now in 1978 that's quite something and I don't think I believed him until he had towed us there (at the best speeds we had done all day) and deposited me with the garage man in some little outback in Cheshire - we didn't really know where we were until he told us he had booked us a hotel in Holmes Chapel - at a price. So in a day we had managed to travel from Formby to Holmes Chapel, a distance of about 50 miles which we would have expected to take an hour on a bad day ...

Lovely hotel, we bathed the kids and put them to bed after tea and then had a lovely meal with wine. Very relaxing and all the better for being unexpected. So we were down a day, didn't really matter.

Expenses £
Petrol 5.07
Meal (Burtonwood) 2.39
Tea (Knutsford) 1.30

preparations for the big trek

When you've got no money - buy a tent, but not just any old tent, but top of the range, with 3 white cloth bedrooms that tie on and a kitchen extension tent. And then buy all the equipment you never knew you needed . So we have a 2 burner stove with a stand to put THINGS on! A set of 3 saucepans that fit inside one another with all the lids fitting inside too with the interchangeable handle inside the smallest one. Isn't that cute I thought. Lots more to buy and so little time - a washing up bowl on another stand with a draining board - (there's luxury), campbeds, sleeping bags, table, fold-up chairs, kettle with a foldup handle, frying pan, and lots more. Carried away by the possibilities, it never occurred to me that I could save money by taking equipment I already owned - did I think there were magic properties in items bought at the camping store?

The nice man in the tent store colour coded all the poles for us so that we novices couldn't start arguing the minute we got on a foreign campsite, and so that we would have a roof over us before it gets dark. When we got the kit home it took ages to unload, which didn't bode well for calm, efficient travel, especially if you take into account the amount of tackle you need for 2 toddlers. Perhaps that should have rung alarm bells but instead I decided on lists - list of camping stuff, list of kid stuff, list of our stuff, list of food and household stuff, list of Order of Packing, endless lists to make us Better Campers.

The day after the extravagant purchase was a fine Sunday, Granny was looking after the kids, so we decided on a dry run of erecting the tent and associated paraphanalia. It went very efficiently, thanks largely to the colour-cordinated poles (definitely less irritation factor), and within an hour, there we were with our own little bungalow that could go anywhere, anytime. . Having such a success, we now knew exactly what to do, how and in what sequence. Perfect - nothing simpler, there was a moment when i thought maybe we should just holiday in our back garden, but no, we're good to go. With a week to go I felt in control, potential problems eliminated.