Coffee?

The kitchen when we returned home on Sunday evening. Sadly, just as we left it.
The House Repair Elves hadn't been in and fixed everything like they did for the shoemaker.

I must apologise in advance for the distinct lack of pictures - other than the one on the right, which is what we returned to - in this episode, but really, we didn't have many photo opportunities that would be fitting for this.

On with the yarn ...

After the end of Thursday when the light on the stairs (yes, we only had the one - there should be at least two) went out, refusing to work again, we thought that if that's as bad as it gets, we were laughing.

However, things were going to test us further ...

The very next day - Friday - we were due to make a lightning trip to England, which meant out on the overnight on Friday and back on the early sailing Sunday. Ostensibly this trip was for us to go to the 'Pearson family do', a regular annual event that I had been attending with Penny since we first got together. Mostly, it's the only chance the family got to be together in one place.

For many families, this would probably be a time of mass murder or worse, but surprisingly, that's never happened at any of our get-togethers. It's actually really nice to see everyone and remark on how much the (now) nephews and nieces had grown.

Well why not? Penny and I had had to put up with that kind of cheek-pinching embarrassment when we were their age and besides, we are now great aunt and great uncle - a fact that we were pointedly reminded of.

We will get our own back for that one, Sarah, don't think you got away it.

Anyway, we were looking forward to it.

In our infinite wisdom, we had decided we were going to visit Tesco's and B&Q first for some stuff we either couldn't get here or was just damned expensive - like Dulux gloss paint, which is 69€ a litre over here and about 75% cheaper in England. This is another reason we needed a cabin. I was bad enough with sleep - imagine me without!

The Friday night ferry was due to leave Caen at 11:00pm our time and we left in plenty of time to get there, get something to eat and just relax. We had sported the eighty-odd quid for a cabin so we could get some sleep on the crossing. It sounds a lot, but we'd done overnight crossings before without a cabin and sadly, the shops and restaurants on-board aren't open all night - oh, no. They shut everything fairly soon after setting sail and thereafter nothing happens. In fact, on this particular tub - the MV Normandy if you want to avoid the floating heap we had the misfortune to be holed up on - they had just two 'Clix' coffee machines and one of those was out of order. Besides, the furnishings are anything but conducive for us two old farts to sleep on.

To add insult to injury, we'd left it so long to book a cabin, the only one left was on deck 5 - the same deck as the garage - which amounts to steerage. The vibration and noise was ridiculous, but that aside, the beds were so hard that sleep was nigh-on impossible. Finding ourselves waking up at 04:30 our time just three hours after settling down for what remained of the night, was not a surprise.

Breakfast was okay - but we just wanted to finish off with a nice cup of coffee. However, all they had was this disgusting brown water that came out of another machine was made 'au lait' with an odd white gloop that tasted foul and who knows what it did to you on the inside. We weren't having that.

Once off the boat, we went to Tesco's, spent more money than we intended, got cornered by a little old lady who insisted on telling us her life story and got trapped in the car park for our trouble. It took twenty minutes and two very nice blokes to come and fix the machine to get back out. We were apparently the earliest rescue they'd ever had, so that was something at least, even if it wasn't the kind of fame we're looking for.

Next, I took us to B&Q and here's where the idea of trying to fit everything in on the one day kind of began falling apart. Oh sure, we don't have far to drive compared to some, what with living in the north of France, but having left home at six the evening before, driven nearly two hours through the Friday evening traffic to get to the port, had virtually no sleep and trying to deal with a store the size of B&Q was no mean feat. The place is colossal!

Once again, we spent more than was intended and got stuff we hadn't thought of, but we left B&Q happy for two reasons:

1. We had saved money with what we bought
2. We could finally get a bloody coffee.

Yes folks, by this time, unless someone really wanted their head ripped off, coffee was a serious necessity. Needless to say, B&Q's coffee machine was also out of order.

I felt just like Bruce Willis in Hudson Hawk: "I just want a cappuccino ..."

We made our way to Crawley feeling that in the nearly two hours it was going to take us to get to the 'do', we were bound to hit a Little Chef or some other greasy spoon ... somewhere.

No.

We couldn't believe that there was a time that you couldn't move for Little Chefs or establishments of a similar nature, yet between Portsmouth and Crawley, there wasn't a single one. Had we chosen the wrong route or is that really the case?

So after nearly five hours after disembarking from our floating hell, we didn't find a single place to buy a coffee.

Well, that's not strictly true.

We found the pub where we were to meet the family and ironically, about five hundred metres before the roundabout it was on, there was a filling station with a big 'Costa Coffee' sign outside. Typical!

Five minutes, a visit to the little boy's and little girl's rooms, you will never meet two happier people. Just as well actually, as we were just about to become two of twenty-nine, which without caffeine, would have been like lighting the blue touch paper and forgetting to let go and stand well back from the world's most powerful firework.

Nevertheless and possibly thanks to the large 'Costa Cappuccinos,' the dinner not only went flawlessly, but was bloody lovely. Oddly enough, for the first time in the twenty-five years of being with Pen, we were on the adult's table. It felt weird, but I suppose age does have some perks after all!

Leaving the dinner, we headed back to Portsmouth and the B&B we'd booked for the night.

Let me tell you, had we not been forced to spend a night somewhere worse, this would have been the worse B&B we'd ever been in. The woman who greeted us, ignored me completely, choosing to speak only to Penny, despite having had emails for the  booking from both of us. I was made to feel about as welcome as a fart in a space suit.

The room was alright I suppose, but the nets at the widows were torn, it was right on the main road, had a street lamp outside it and heavy traffic passed by, seemingly without the faintest idea of when to quit. There were no en-suite facilities, which for £55 per night was shocking and meant sharing a bathroom that was dirty, mouldy and who knows what else. Its saving grace was that it had a TV, but the tea and coffee were really nasty and tasteless. When we turned off the light to go to sleep, thanks to the street lamp outside, it didn't get noticeably darker. Closing the window didn't make it noticeably less noisy either.

Mercifully, it didn't make much difference to us as we were so tired that they could have held World War III outside and we wouldn't have been any the wiser.

No coffee the next morning, as whilst there were still some sachets of 'stain' (the only description worthy of the crap we'd been given in the name of coffee), there was no way either of us wanted to tempt fate with any of that. Anyway, we figured we'd get some at the ferry terminal.

No such luck.

They decided to load early, but once on the ferry - a nice one this time - we relaxed. After a lovely breakfast and a visit to our cabin, we went to the cafe on Deck 8 or 9 for coffee.

How they think they can get away with serving that muck on the boat to their own countrymen or women, is beyond us. It came from a proper expresso machine, but they insist upon using milk that really can't be described as fit for human consumption. It completely ruined the coffee by overpowering the coffee itself and left us a fiver poorer.

Still, the sun came out when we finally arrived in Passais and we were able to make a decent cafetiere - the first of the day. A really nice welcome home! Just as well, as a relaxing getaway this was not, and as you will discover, it didn't finish there.

However, that's another episode - the next one actually.

It was so good to be back where we feel we're supposed to be, but thanks go from Pen and I to all who were at the Duke's Head in Crawley on Saturday and made it such a brilliant time. Thanks too go to Nick and the other members of staff, who did a sterling job, making us all feel so welcome.

By the way, Nick, I'd really like that playlist that was on the sound system. You did promise - sort of.