| un: Prelude
 | | Ian and Stu discuss whether or not Ian has
left the keys to the bike rack at his
flat |
WE set off after work: Ian and I in
his car, Stu and Jen in theirs. M11, M25, M20. There were a lot of
signs on the M25 for the Dartford Tunnel, which turned out to be a
rather pretty bridge over some rather ugly industrial places.
 We overtook one car with
German number plates, furry dice in the back, go-faster stripes
painted on, and the inhabitants' names over the front window: Harald
and Lizzi, Harald driving on the left side of course. We decided they
were Essen Man.
It was dark as we were
passing the Channel Tunnel terminus, just after Ashford. A tall and
robust fence went on for miles along the side of the road and, as we
crested the hill, we could see a collection of brobdingnagian train
platforms, all expansively lit in the night.
But the tunnel was not for
us: Stu, Grand Organiser of Trips to France, had decided on the ferry,
partly because he's a creature of habit but also because he goes so
often that he gets ferry tickets really cheap.
"The ferry," Stu explained,
"is always a fairly degrading experience". The ferry's on-board
televisions showed pop videos, "classic British comedy", High 5, and
Howard Stapleford explaining why catamarans (as used on the same
company's more expensive crossings) are a Good Thing, scientifically
speaking -- all with pictures but no sound, which made it all a bit
pointless. One piece of classic comedy they chose to show was one of
Harry Enfield's Wayne and Waynetta sketches -- we all agreed that
satirising Essex Man on a cross-channel ferry was like showing
disaster movies on an aeroplane.
The duty-free shop was the
most degrading bit -- it was tiny and seemingly only one step removed
from being a conveyor belt: pipe Essex Men in one end, make sure they
pick up precisely one 1-litre bottle of spirits, pipe them out the
other end. We actually thought about our purchases with some care,
although it must be said that our selections did end up being drunk
quite as unceremoniously as any yob could have managed. Jen, token
Irishwoman, got some Jameson's; Stu, Grand Marnier; I, Beefeater gin
(I got some stern looks here from the others for Not Playing The Game
as the Gordon's had been 25p cheaper); and Ian, a bottle of Ricard.
"What's that?" I asked.
"It's pastis," explained
Ian, "it's an extremely authentically French drink. You'll -- well,
you won't like it, you're not meant to like it, but you'll,
er, drink it."
"We have richard every time
we go to France," furthered Stu, "It's impossible to imagine anyone
actually drinking it for pleasure, it's just something we do."
We docked at Calais at about
midnight, French time. Without even having to wave the covers of our
passports at anyone we were off, out onto the autoroute. We hurtled
through the French night. Calais, Boulogne, Montreuil, Abbeville. It
was a long time before we saw a car on the roads that wasn't British.
Occasionally we'd pass a sign in English reminding us to drive on the
right side of the road, which I thought a sad indictment of the
average British tourist, not to mention frightening if it meant that
people really did penetrate that far into France without having
noticed. French road signs are, I was pleased to see, mostly the same
as British ones -- but all with slight differences in proportions or
typography, contributing to a sense of what I suppose really was
foreignness.
Neufchatel-en-Bray, Rouen
(looked like quite a top floodlit cathedral), Dreux, Evreux. By now it
was about 3am, and, seeing as I don't drive, Ian was getting pretty
exhausted. Repeated sugar rushes from Mars bars and Yorkies weren't
getting through to him, so we stopped at a layby and ate some jam
tarts. Occasional British cars continued to whip past us -- we were
only about 50 miles from Le Havre and Dieppe.
| Learn to Speak Stu #1: Verbs of demolition |
|---|
Just as Esquimaux are meant to have lots of
words for snow (a linguist friend once told me that was actually a
myth), a holiday like this needs lots of words for eating and
drinking. Here are some of the most common:
Quaff: Drink. In
common use, has connotations of spilling most of it, but with Stu this
is assuredly not the case.
Ship: Drink.
Scran: Eat. Can also
be used as a noun, meaning "food".
Trough: Eat. Has
connotations of eating heartily rather than delicately. More rarely
used as a noun.
Neck: Eat or
drink.
See off: Eat
or drink to such an extent as to finish the jar/bottle/panful
etc. Does not necessarily imply that this requires excessive
consumption.
Cane: Eat or,
usually, drink. Has connotations of doing so to excess.
Abstain from:
Judging from Ian's behaviour after saying he was going to do this,
seems to mean "drink". |
 |
| Cathedrals from really quite a
long way away: Chartres |
When the jam tarts had all
gone, we pressed on. We struck the ring road at Chartres with the dawn
coming up. Chartres, like Ely, is very flat and the cathedral had the
skyline to itself as it turned pink in the first rays of sun of our
first day in France.
The sun was still balanced
on the horizon, steadying itself for its long, long trek across the
sky, as we reached Châteaudun, but sadly we only caught a brief
glimpse of the château itself. Then Vendôme, after which the journey
was torture as we were so nearly there, but the roads were tiny and
wiggly and impossible to travel fast. Every few miles after Vendôme,
Ian would be saying, "Ah, yes, I recognise this bit now" or, when we
were closer, "We cycled out here one year".
Almost the last place he
said this was les Roques-d'Évèque, a tiny village set into a cliff
face, where all the houses have perfectly normal fronts but just turn
into caves at the back. Living somewhere like that has been a dream of
mine for a long time -- but I'd never before seen a place where it was
possible. (Every house I've ever lived in has been tyrannically
right-angled everywhere -- I mean, a right-angled thing isn't a Real
Place, it's more like a VRML session.)
 Eventually, at about 7am, we pulled into the car park at
Alf's campsite in Montoire-sur-le-Loir.
| Le Loir |
|---|
| No, not La Loire, but Le Loir, which is a
tributary of it. |
Tired, but, by now, mighty happy ("This France then?" -- "Might be")
we pulled the Grand Marnier out of Stu's car and necked some for
breakfast.
 All Rites
Reversed -- Copy What You Like
|