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We set off on Friday, having got ourselves up at 2:30am. Sarah had her box of goodies to play with and Jao Chai had his guitar. Ten minutes into our journey we were passing the famous art deco Hoover factory as we drove towards London on the A40. Sarah and Jane were already in a deep sleep on the back seat, while in the front passenger seat, Jao Chai was also beginning to nod off. At this stage of the journey he had still not decided whether he would accompany us to the Languedoc, or get us to drop him off in Paris, where he had some other friends he wanted to look up. Since it had really only been at the eleventh hour and fifty ninth minute that we had been sure that Jao Chai would be with us, I had not booked him a ferry ticket. Given that mid July is the height of the holiday season, I had some misgivings as we drove toward the English South coast, that Jao Chai would be turned back. As soon as we arrived at Dover I headed straight for the ticket office and was relieved to find that adding one more person to the passenger list was not a problem.
By the time the ferry cast off at 6:00am, dawn had already broken on what promised to be a clear sunny day. We found some seats in an onboard cafeteria and started the day with some coffee and croissants, quickly getting into the holiday mood. After disembarking at the Calais ferry terminal, Jao Chai was clearly very irritated when the French authorities manning the Immigration and Customs posts, waved through every vehicle without inspecting a single document. After his marathon efforts to obtain a visa he did not feel his time had been well spent. For my own part, as someone who had previously had my passport examined on many occasions when entering France, I was glad of the time we saved and gleefully floored the accelerator peddle as we left Calais behind us.
As we approached Paris, I gently nudged Jao Chai out of his slumber and asked him whether he wanted to be dropped off, or remain with us all the way to the Languedoc. I guess he must have been very comfortable where he was, because he chose the easy option and snoozed for most of the unusually painless tour around the Peyriphique. A little after miday we stopped to stretch our legs and snack on hot dogs and cola at a motorway services station on the peage to Orleans. Despite it being the holiday season, the traffic was only moderately heavy and got progressively lighter the further South we went. page 104 Copyright Frasquenet.com |
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