En route to Newhaven thence to France

[marchie]

Woke just after 5am yesterday at our overnight Hagley Bypass A491, so decided to get underway after the morning pills and related procedures. Arrived at Warwick Services at 0625 and back on the road again after breakfast for 0810. Thought that A34 might be less busy than M25/M23 and the former has laybys for a cuppa if the traffic does snarl up. Within the space of about 5 miles, the A34 delay went from 20 to 35 minutes and then to 50 minutes! Pulled in at first layby for 15 minutes and the 'office by 0900' crowd that had caused the solid 2 lanes had disappeared, allowing a gentle ride down the A34. M3S was chokka, and the M27 'lets try to squeeze yet another lane in' roadworks continue, so we were at funeral procession pace again.

Freed up after Portsmouth Ferry Port, but the Chichester Bypass was solid in both directions and traffic joining from Chi or the coast had nowhere to go (just before 1145am ...). Contemplated the traffic volumes as we watched the building sites strung along the A27 on both sides ... Solid to Fontwell, Arundel, more roadworks and house building around Lancing College and Shoreham, and then we joined the A27/A26 traffic jams to Newhaven ...

Ignoring breaks, it took about 6 hours of motorway and dual carriageway driving to cover 210 miles!

Decided to pay the £18 supplement (inc £10 Admin Fee) to get the 1700 Ferry, instead of hanging around for the 2300 sailing, clearing Dieppe at 2330 CET. The closure of Gustav Flaubert bridge in Rouen, plus diversion, and Elaine's inspired 'No Tolls' route, took us on some very rural roads, and we finally reached the Free Aire at Beaumont le Roger at 0130

The bonus in all this is that by the time we woke up this morning, all the other M/homes had left, so we were able to take on of the 2 pitches with free EHU ..

Steve

 

[GMJ]

Where are you off to on this trip Steve? I know you don't do detailed planning but do you have some ideas?

 

[moonshadow]

I feel your pain with the hold ups - we have to live with it to go anywhere. Have a great trip and don’t forget iced tea only!

 

[The laird]

I drove from Livingston to newhaven in a one shot on Sunday to miss the Monday holiday traffic and parked up in newhaven around 18'30 had a great Kip first for a while got the 17*00 ferry and on entering dieppe the aire to the right had the shows there
The aire at cliff side was empty but we stopped at auchan supermarket car park we had a few other vans who asked where we were staying followed us there at the alpine car roundabout great peaceful sleep again
Anyway hope you get the hovel shifted steve

 

[runnach]

Left Turenne this morning around ten, heading for the A20 (motorway) clear drive all the way, no hold ups at all, even Limoges section was a dawdle.

Oh how this will change when we drop wheels back on UK soil

 

[marchie]

Where are you off to on this trip Steve? I know you don't do detailed planning but do you have some ideas?

This is as near to a business trip as I get nowadays, Graham. We've had a tentative enquiry about seling our French hovel, so we're spending a little time for a break on the way down; then load the most important stuff [to us] that we can carry in Brunhilde and back to Scotland after we've got an Estate Agent valuation [appointment 6th June] and made appointments with the Notaires and the Surveyors for the technical inspection [equivalent to a full Structural Survey in UK but more painstaking!]. We also have to give the village first refusal on the property [they never take up the offer, but this adds another 7 days to the process and will involve an appointment with the Mayor]

If the sale does not proceed, we will probably instruct the Estate Agent to conduct a sale on the Open Market, but we may ask the Mayor whether the village would like to use it to place a tenant for 2 years; it's another option ...

The whole process is quite convoluted, but very structured, and we can use any time lags to nip back and forth to collect our valuables, though it will probably be cheaper to just pay a Removals Firm to deliver the stuff to Scotland. We did pick up an escritoire and a secretaire at a glorified Old Furniture Warehouse [bought for ease of paperwork filing rather than antique value] in Angers so we'll try to get at least one of them in Brunhilde for the return trip

Steve