We always like the weather to be rubbish when we leave Britain, just because it confirms our decision on the timing to leave the UK. Unfortunately, we had to drive to Dover under the perfect XC sky. I kept my eyes firmly on the road…

The boat trip was uneventful as usual, getting round Paris was a pain as always and we slept in a motorway service station in the front seats of the van as ever. I did get a cramped six hours, interrupted every hour or so by the need to shift position, either because a limb had gone to sleep, my head had lolled forward or I was drooling – still, for an insomniac, that’s a lot of sleep! In the morning we went into the service station for coffee and croissants and as I went to brush my teeth in the ladies, I was confronted by a man pointing a rather large gun at me. I must have been really groggy because rather than being particularly concerned, I walked back out to check the sign on the door to confirm that I hadn’t accidentally wandered into the gents. Luckily, he was army, rather than a psychopath, so I just got on with brushing my teeth. The gents were being cleaned…

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