Saturday 12 May
Saturday morning dawned bright and early but the children were still asleep! After the way they behaved last night, it was tough! Hopping over the road to the P&O Ferry Terminal we boarded on time in lovely sunny weather. The journey to Le Havre was great and very relaxed, thank goodness! The boat was virtually empty and we explored all the decks both inside and outside. The children amused themselves by playing with balls and going into a mini adventure playground designed by SPI. The only disappointment was the food but we were sure that we would make up for that in France...
We spent a very relaxed hour sitting in the bar with a drink before having a grotty lunch. The games machines fascinated Michael and I felt much happier than I did last night, despite our poor night's sleep!
By 2pm we had arrived in Le Havre but before entering France we had to dip our tyres and shoes in disinfectant to prevent the spread of Foot and Mouth disease which was prevalent in the UK. Both children were now asleep, worn out by the previous night and all the running about.
The route to the village of Gorron, where our gites were situated, was wonderful with hardly any traffic. We caught up with Mum and Dad in their car and sped on past Honfleur and Caen. The countryside looked beautiful - rolling hills, farmland and forests with pretty villages and a particularly lovely town called Domfront.
We followed the directions to the gites exactly and soon came to Gorron. From Brece we took a little road over a river and then turned right onto a very narrow road that wound up through farmland. Before long we saw our sign - La Returais - and we had arrived! Of all the couples we were the first to get there!
Unlocking the door to La Maison D'Aube we were pleased with what we saw. The gite was neat and tidy with a well-equipped kitchen and sitting area. The key to La Grange was on the table but we decided to wait for Mum and Dad. "Gorby", a friendly dog that belonged to the farm around the corner, welcomed us to the gite and Sophie immediately made friends with him while Michael tried to pull his tail...
Soon, Mum and Dad arrived and we unlocked their cottage called La Grange. Unfortunately, this is when our troubles began... Before the holiday we had all gathered to allocate the bedrooms for each couple. Mum and Dad had been given the ground floor shower room and we now found that this was, instead, just a toilet and wash-basin, nothing more than a cloakroom and certainly not a shower room as it had been described! There wasn't even a mirror in there! Upstairs, in their bedroom there were no wardrobes and so they were not at all happy at such basic accommodation for a week's stay. To be honest the other rooms weren't much better with one bedroom having just a chest of drawers and nowhere to hang any clothes!
Keith was still in our gite unpacking - we had been given a cottage to ourselves as we didn't want to disturb the others with the children. Mum and Dad were so angry with the gite that we decided to try and sort out the problem ourselves, before the others arrived. In hindsight, this turned out to be the wrong decision but we thought we were only trying to help.
All the bed linen for the two cottages was left in La Grange and what a hotch potch of different sizes there was! Most of the quilt covers were doubles but most of the beds were singles. We did our best to sort it all out, thinking that when the other two couples arrived it would be chaos.
By now it was past 6pm and Mum and Dad were threatening to go and stay at a local hotel. Thinking that the others would be arriving any minute I said we should wait but when 7pm came and went, we had no choice to unpack. My parents had come up with a good idea - the four of us and the children would move into La Grange, the bigger of the two gites, while the other couples would move into Maison D'Aube. Everybody would then have their own bathroom and the problem would be solved.
We couldn't wait any longer for the others to arrive as we needed to get the children fed and ready for bed so we all unpacked and moved into La Grange. Eventually, at around 7.30pm, John and Sarah arrived and I went out to greet them and explained what had happened. I told them we had no choice to move into La Grange and that we couldn't wait any longer as we needed to get the children fed and bathed. John seemed put out but Sarah understood, especially when we showed them the downstairs "bathroom". Minutes after I'd spoken to them John called David on his mobile and told them there'd been a change of plan...
At last, at 8pm, David and Pat arrived and David's face showed the stress he'd been under. Our explanation was the last straw and David turned on Dad and shouted that he thought that all the arrangements had been made before we left. He yelled he'd had a bad journey (they'd travelled via Calais) and his face was contorted with fury... Pat refused to even speak to Mum and Dad and immediately disappeared into the gite. I was in the shower at the time so I missed all the fun but Mum and Dad were clearly upset about David's outburst even though he appeared ten minutes later to apologise. He said he was tired, but then weren't we all tired? We'd had a rough night and two small children to get ready in strange surroundings!
After we'd showed David around the cottage he seemed very sheepish but, sadly, the damage had been done and this nasty episode set the tone for the whole holiday.
Dinner that night was slightly strained with a very supercillious John mentioning bread over and over (we had committed the heinous sin of forgetting to buy it). We shared some very inferior wine that had been bought at Carrefour and sometime after 10pm, the other two couples made their excuses and retired for the night. What a day!
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