Wednesday 23rd May 2018

I like a beer, that I cannot deny. And I also like a wine every now and again, mostly with meals, but I'm not choosy. I also like a wee dram from time time, but that's by the by. I say this, as since my project in Belgium ended a year back, I have rather missed the beers I used to get. Tesco do sell delerium for £2.50 a bottle, and the shop in Folkestone sells my favourite, Karmeliet, at £4 a bottle. Tiny 300ml bottles.

In Belgium, such bottles are about 6 for less than €6, and call me tight, I don't like to pay quadruple that I know you can buy them for over there. Wine, although cheap as chips in Calais, I know I can buy a serviceable box of Italian plonk for £12, which does the job.

So a trip to Belgium, if one comes up will be for buying silly strong beer, not wine. Just to make that clear. As English beer is like lemonade now.

So, a few weeks back during one of our card nights, after pushing Jen to find out when she was going over, we agreed that a trip would happen when I was on my holibobs. And the date of 23rd May was the day picked.

I had to be at Jen's at quarter to nine, so we could pick up Jon and we get to the port in time for the ten fifteen sailing.

I left home at half eight, then spending most of the next 15 minutes stuck in traffic at the roundabouts either end of the A2, then once we were loaded, we had to get back out through the traffic to the bottom of Whitfield Hill to pick up John, then through the town to Townwall Street and then to the port.

We sailed through the two sets of immigration, checked in at the ferry company's hut, only to find that the sailing we were booked onto was the ten past eleven. We went back to check, and somehow, Jen had managed to reserve a place on a freight only sailing, which they said we could not get on. So we had a 90 minute wait before the sailing.

So we sat in the waiting lane for an hour. I read a magazine, finished that, and looking up I saw the ferry arriving. It had to be unloaded, secured before we were let on. We sailed just before midday, nearly two hours late, and with the time difference the other side, we would have just three hours to do our stuff before we had to catch the sailing back.

Before then, we had 90 minutes on the ferry, and more than enough time to get a few hands of meld in.

We found a table with three chairs, and the first hand was dealt. The engines powered up, and we slipped out of the moorings, and then out of the harbour and into the Channel. The boat rocked and we carried on playing, until with about twenty minutes before arriving in France, John went out for a gasper, so I joined him with the dirty tabbers in the driving rain. They suffer for their addiction.

We are told to go back to the cars down on the deck below, where we climb in and wait as the ship docks and we can drive out. Somehow we are one of the last out, so have now less than 3 hours before we have to be back here, and in between a hour and 20 minute drive to and back from Adinkerke.

As least the road is good, Jen hammers the Galaxy up the road at 130 kmh, past familiar landmarks, for me until we cross the border and pull into the town where the streets are lined with baccy shops.

Inside I find my favourite beer for £1.10 a bottle, and two full crates were just crying out to be taken away. So I do. Jen buys ten months supply of gaspers, as does John. And once back outside, we load the car and pause for sandwiches that John had made; cheese and onion, went down well.

Back on the motorway south, we stop at junction 44 so I could buy more wine and some pink fizz there, before a final dash to the port, queue to get through French customs, British customs (only one office open out of ten!, so huge queues), and then to the ferry companies desk, where we got out slot and we could drive to the waiting lane.

I read the second magazine I had brought, and finished just in time to see the ferry pull in. So we wait for it to be unloaded, then some more waiting, then we can drive on via the slide at the front, and we are on board.

Phew.

Back upstairs where we claim a table and begin playing cards again, whilst people around us stocked up on cans of Stella and wine seem to be competing in a drinking competition as we cross back over to Blighty. And the language used! Oh my.

We arrive in Dover to the fine sight of sunshine and golden light playing on the harbour and castle above.

We go back down to the car and wait to be let off, but at least all we have to do is get pt of the port, go up Jubilee Way and go to Jens to unload the car, so I could go home.

I get back at seven, and am too shattered to unload the car, so I go inside for a huge brew and dinner, which as Jools had already eaten, s I have a plateful of cheesy beans on toast, and it does the job. That used to be my Dad's Saturday night supper back in the 80s.

I was just awake enough to write a couple of blog posts, but come just after nine we call it a day.

Who knew that having time off could be so tiring.