We left Leicester on the morning of Jan 2 and made good time to Dover with no issues. On the way, I wanted to see if there were issues at the port, but the website is a bit shit so I googled and found the Twitter feed of the port. This is what I saw:
My heart skipped a beat, until I noticed that this post was 3 years old, pre-Brexit. FFS.
Once we made it to Dover, things started to go wahooney-shaped. We got there at 1115. Our ferry was scheduled for 1430. It took us over 1h to make it past the 1st (French) border check. There were 8 lanes of traffic, filtering into only 2 border gates.
After finally making it through, we got singled out for a random security check, huzzah. We discovered that no one knew how to pop the car hood open, so we looked like idiots, but besides that, everything was fine. Navigating the port was much simpler, and we found the right lane easily. Unfortunately, the weather made the ferry late for arrival, later for boarding, and even later for departure. The captain even commented that the weather would make things a bit exciting. We made it through fine, even the byby. In the end, we made it to the hotel for 7pm, which is mad because it took us less time to get to Calais from Morges on the first day of travel…
We had dinner at the hotel, like last time, but this time both Katy and Ben started feeling a bit green after dinner. This did not bode well. I got super anxious, with visions of food-poisoned family stuck in the hotel, with dog, until things got better. In the end, after a few hours of sleep, Katy felt that she was ok-ish enough to make the drive home.
The weather was truly horrible. There was a wind warning, flood warnings for Pas-de-Calais and the roads were rain soaked to the point where we couldn’t see the road markings and had to use the force a few times. Passing lorries, with all the spray, was anus-clenching at times.
Once the sun came up, driving became easier. Ben and the dog were sleeping in the back seat, so that was good. We confirmed out first impression that French services are a bit shit, and for reasons unknown, the toilet seats are all squat toilets, with no toilet seats. This is not pleasant. We finally found services that had an open Burger King for Ben. Another negative hit for French services – people don’t pick up their dog shit so there are landmines EVERYWHERE. In the end, the drive back was unremarkable. We tried to chew up the miles when the weather was dry and sunny, and stopped every 1.5-2h or so to stretch legs and let the dog pee. We made it over the Jura pass while it was still daylight, which was the reason we left so early, and crossed the French/Swiss border around 3pm. We were back “home”. Shortly after, we caught the first glimpse of the lake and a big weight lifted off my shoulders. It felt that my anxious thoughts were the only thing holding everything together. The A1 welcomed us home with a traffic accident between Morges Est and Morges Ouest exits, but we made it home.
And then the dog barfed on the carpet.
We were home.
