Friday, 18 May 2001

A Wine Club trip to France 11-18 May 2001

Friday 18 May

Chaos reigned this morning as we packed up to return home. The children got under our feet as we tried to clean and tidy the cottage and pack the cars. David excelled himself this morning by going to the bakery and not getting any bread or croissants for us at all!

By 10am we were all ready to go and said goodbye to the others except for John who had disappeared. We drove to the Super U at Gorron and had a very stressful hour buying wine and coffee to take home. I saw John driving out of the car park but he didn't see me, whether by choice or whether he genuinely didn't spot me, I don't know.

The journey to Le Havre was fast and smooth with the sun coming out to say goodbye. I felt rather sad that the holiday hadn't turned out how I had expected and I seriously doubted whether we would carry on the Wine Club when we all returned home.

We arrived in Le Havre in good time, passing Mum and Dad on the way as they had opted for a different route. The ferry journey was uneventful and by 9.30pm we were docking in Portsmouth and facing a long journey back to Northampton!

Epilogue...

The Wine Club never started again and, as I write in 2013, we have not spoken to David and Pat since. We remain on friendly terms with John and Sarah who have since moved house and we had a pleasant conversation with John in our local pub only a few weeks ago. We all paid a deposit against breakages at La Returais and despite leaving the cottages clean and tidy, we never received our deposit back!







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Janie, forgive this intrusion. I stumbled on your blog as I googled "Le Returais" as we're thinking of staying there in July and I was looking for some reviews. I've just read your magnificent holiday diary and just wanted to say how sorry I was that it turned into such a disaster for you and your wine club friends, but it did make me smile !

Janie said...

Thank you so much for your comment and it was no intrusion at all - I love getting comments from people so your words made me smile too!