Novocastrian

We'll be arriving back at our home in Normandy on Monday afternoon. Huzzah! We left on March 16th having planned to stay until mid April last time.

Fingers crossed, we'll be there this time until early October. It GOOD to be retired. Oh yes.

cyrian

We will also arrive at our home in France on Monday afternoon.
We left at the end of February with a return scheduled with our family in April.
It didn't happen because of something called lockdown
Still waiting for refunds from Ryanair.
This time we are travelling via the tunnel to avoid being in crowds.
We will be passing through Normandy en route.
We also need to top up our wine store which reduced massively over the last few months.
Have a safe trip Novo.

dmu

Welcome back, both of you! Hope all goes well while you're here...
P.S. Don't forget to bring some masks, they'll be compulsory in enclosed public places as from Monday....

EuroTrash

Bon voyage both. I envy you and hope to be following soon (got me a bit of a "situation" here, unfortunately). Please enjoy a proper French croissant dunked in milky coffee for me (even if you don't enjoy it for yourself ).

dmu

Completely off-topic, but all my in-laws think that milky coffee (50-50) is poisonous and wonder how I've survived so long. I managed to convert OH to it, which was even more surprizing to his family....And now,

Novocastrian

We are doing that too for the first time. For years we've driven 2 hours from Newcastle to Hull and boarded the P&O overnight ferry to Zeebrugge. Zeebrugge to chez nous is a bit under 5 hours. Neither of us fancied it this time.

Bon voyage a vous aussi.

BuckinghamshireBoy

I would be interested to know of your journey time from Newcastle to the tunnel when it happens?

I had been planning to meet up with my brother in Berwick On Tweed (obscure family business stuff) this last April; he coming from just east of Plymouth, us either Zeebrugge-Hull or Rotterdam-Newcastle, but obviously it's all been put on hold, most likely until next April at best now.

I really don't fancy overnighting on the ferry, so looking at tunnel and longer drive as a possibility.

Wishing yourselves and Cyrian smooth trips.

BEVS

Happy Days.

Novocastrian

Google says we're looking at 6 hour drive today. We'll spend the night in Folkestone and chunnel under the sea on Monday morning. I'll report back.

Novocastrian

You know you have a standing invitation to visit BEVS.

cyrian

Just made the journey from Scotch Corner to the tunnel.
It was 5 hours driving time excluding stops.
So 6 hours seems reasonable to Newcastle.
I chose to use the A1M then the M11 to minimise the time on the M25.
However the A14 which joins the A1M to the M11 was totally closed which meant a poorly signed detour through pretty little villages.
I should have stayed on the A1M.
The train seemed really quiet and we were given the option to take a train 1 hour earlier.
HTH

BuckinghamshireBoy

That really does help me, thank you.

I've just plotted a route, home-Calais-chunnel-Cambridge-Berwick coming in at +/- 950km, 10:50 hours according to Google (no idea what % of time Google might add for chunnel faff time), but given that we have friends who have a B&B in Cambridge (around half way) that would seem a good place to lay over.

There's really no contest between a relaxed evening in hugely good company against "iffy" scrambled eggs backed with a hint of diesel.

Edit: sorry for the 'hijack'.

EuroTrash

That's good going. I used to allow 5 hours from Leeds, back in the day.

BEVS

Yes. I do remember thank you Novo.
If I can just find a way to arrive !

Novocastrian

Ha! My satnav made exactly the same mistake. It didn't know that you can access the M11 directly from the A1M theses days. Anyway we arrived in our house yesterday at about 4 pm (French time). All is well here even after months of neglect. The garden needs work but it's as gorgeous as ever.