I consider the animal situation quite differently. I do
believe that most people are capable of supplying our chickens and game birds
with their seed and water, and we take precautions to make sure that the forest
animals are provided with ample supplies of maize. Being wild, I'm also confident
that they can slum it for a few days by dragging themselves to the nearest
stream for water, and substitute their usual luxury diet by nibbling on a
couple of acorns or blade of grass or two while we’re away. Poor things. However,
Hunter is a different matter altogether.
Hunter is a very old dog whom we found abandoned on the road
last year. He has more illnesses than I can list here, including an extremely
dicky heart. Nobody knows how old he is, but our vet sagely advised us that he
was probably très vieux (very old), and also usée (worn out). Not being a great optimist, he also said that if
Hunter travelled with us, he would probably die during our journey which would
be inconvenient to deal with when we got to the passport office in Calais. Jack
jumped on this and announced it clearly meant we wouldn’t be able to go. But
sadly, that was out of the question. We had important appointments in England
so, whatever the animal situation, or weather, we had to make tracks.
Fortunately my dog-walking pals came to our rescue and immediately offered to
take Hunter. For some unknown reason they adore him. Perhaps it’s his
lugubrious expression that enchants them. It certainly can’t be his unfortunate
penchant for eating turds or his disregard for the proper place to have a wee,
i.e. outside. These unsavoury habits may have developed as a result of being
kept in a kennel of hunting hounds. I couldn’t say but, judging by the state we
found him in, there had clearly been little in the way of food. His traits
would be a new revelation for our friends, and might well cause them to modify their opinion
of him.
Brutus, our adorable, affectionate, and very sedentary cat,
is a different matter altogether. We hate being away from him, but there’s no question
that Brutus is not a good traveller. The annual car journey to the vet for his
booster injection is about as much as he can cope with. It causes him to emit a
constant low mournful yowl the moment he is put in the car, and he trembles all
the way there and back. It’s just awful for the poor lad. This means that careful
planning and superlative trapping skills are required whenever the dreadful vet
date arrives. I’m now convinced that, instead of inserting a microchip with his
ID number on it, the vet opened the wrong packet and implanted a Gregorian
calendar. Brutus seems to know exactly when we’re about to take him to the vet,
and becomes surprisingly elusive in those days running up to his appointment.
We eventually do manage to get him into his cat box, but only after a minor
scuffle and several indignant meows.
With this knowledge, we couldn’t possibly subject our fat
feline to the agonies of travelling in a car for 14 hours, so alternative
arrangements had to be made. I called on another friend and organised for him
to be fed and watered. However, apart from Jack and me, Brutus hates all
humans, even those who are regular visitors. He tolerates the dogs, but only his
own terms, and he still energetically hisses at Hunter – a futile exercise
since Hunter is deaf and almost blind. Such is my sensitivity about Brutus that
I found myself writing out a menu with the precise times when his food should
be served. I included the varieties of food he likes, really likes, and LOVES. Not forgetting the special feed dishes he prefers (which must always be clean), failing which he might be put out, and refuse to eat his meal. In spite of his ample girth, I would worry intensely if such a situation arose. Our poor friend charged
with the responsibility of dealing with this series of challenges looked quite mystified
by the time I’d finished issuing all my instructions. Possibly this level of
attention to cat-care is not common in our part of France.
With most of the menagerie sorted out, this just left our
other dogs, Aby and Max. Our two young Australian Shepherd dogs are fully
chipped and passported, and they would come with us.
Jack made his usual pre-voyage engineer-type preparations by
stripping out the car and making it battle-ready. The rear seats were removed,
bungees placed strategically on newly discovered hooks and his tool box was
placed in the footwell. This immensely large, oily lump is a constant travel
companion of ours. I’d prefer to be without it, but it has come in useful on
previous occasions, so I decided not to complain about my reduced space
allowance. I, in turn, took the dogs to the vet to have their pre-travel check
and make sure that their passports passed muster. We’ve had problems with the
Eurotunnel Pet Passport officials in the past, and I can tell you that after 12
hours of hard slog at the wheel, it’s no joke being told that we are not
allowed to continue because of a mistake in the documentation. With this in
mind I, and two vets, scrutinised both passports to make sure that every detail
was perfectly correct. As luck would have it, Dr. Puiffe, with a triumphant whoop stabbed an offending open space on
a page. He had found a carefully concealed omission. With some level of gravity
he announced that we had failed to fill in the box which should have Aby’s name
on it. What a lifesaver! This was certainly good practice for our interview
with the officials in Calais. I carefully scribed her three-letter name, and
left with our dogs covered in anti-bug chemicals and belching gently with the
after-effects of their special worming tablet.
We got up nice and early on the day of our departure. We’d
packed the night before so all that was needed was to pop in a couple of fresh
snacks, load the dogs, and off we’d go. I gave Brutus a last squeeze, a dewy-eyed
glance, and left him snuggled up and purring in his usual spot on the bed.
The first unanticipated challenge came from the dogs. They
normally associate being in the car with a trip to their doggy pals, so from
the moment the engine was switched on, they howled like banshees. Jack
tolerated this for about, ooh, 30 seconds before snapping, “For crying out loud
sort your bloody dogs out would you? If they carry on like this much longer
we’re going back home!”
Strange how at times like this the miscreant animal in
question instantly becomes my sole property, but on this occasion I chose not
to remind him of the rules concerning joint ownership. Happily all it took was
a couple of curt words, and Max settled down to a snooze. Aby, on the other
hand was completely confused. The poor girl sat erect, trembling slightly, and looked
pensively out of the window for her canine mates.
We commenced our journey and mercifully hadn’t gone far when
the most awful thought occurred to me. I realised that I’d forgotten my kindle.
There are some situations in life where one must throw all caution to the wind
and do the right thing. My dreadful discovery presented one of them.
“Darling we have to go back home.”
“Ah good, you’ve finally seen sense.”
“No! Not to abandon the trip! I’ve forgotten my kindle.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“I know, me neither. I think it was because I was so worried
about leaving Brutus and…”
“That wasn’t what I meant. You seriously don’t mean that we
have to go all the way back just
because you haven’t brought your kindle?”
“Well yes, of course.”
“For crying out loud woman, can’t you read a magazine or
something?”
“Oh darling I can’t possibly
be without my kindle for five nights. No, sorry, we’ll just have to go back and
get it.”
So with many grumps and moans from the driver, about the
agonies of being married to a forgetful woman, we drove back to the house. I
sprinted in to collect my cherished possession, and took care to give Brutus
another squeeze on my way back out.
We were heading towards Calais and the Eurotunnel. Normally
we would take the central route which entails using part of the périphérique (beltway) in Paris, but we
decided against it this time. This was because the French have introduced a new
and intriguing challenge to reduce usage on this busy road system. Although
Jack was totally clued-up as usual, I didn’t know what was going on, so read up
on it. Normally in situations like this the French bureaucrats are the cause of
the complications, but not this time. It seems that noxious smog was to blame. Still
confused, I read an article published by the Guardian newspaper. It reported:
“Emergency
measures introduced in Paris to halve the number of vehicles on the roads after
noxious smog descended on the French capital have been hailed as a success…”
Police said these measures had
reduced traffic jams in and around Paris by up to 40% and already 2,800 drivers
had been stopped and given on-the-spot fines of €22 (£16) for flouting the
regulations. What a brilliant coup
for the French exchequer, I thought, but why so many offenders? Were the rules complicated,
or were they just being French? I read on to discover it might be a bit of
both. It seems that only “clean” cars, or those with the correct number plates
(even on even days, odd on others), or vehicles carrying more than three people
have been permitted to enter Paris and its 22 surrounding areas. Vehicles were
also ordered to travel at a maximum 20kph in the city. To manage all this, the
article reported:
“An
estimated 750 police officers were dispatched from 5.30am onwards to about 100
busy roads and junctions to hand out fines to those who ignored the measures.”
I was intrigued by this information. To begin with I wasn’t
too sure what a ‘clean’ car was. But I feared that with our lake-loving dogs,
ours might never qualify. The fact of having an ‘uneven number plate’ also gave
cause for concern. I then briefly considered whether two humans and two dogs
might count as three occupants. I couldn’t be at all sure about that one. But
with the smog problem being so severe that, according to the Guardian:
“It
nearly obscured the Eiffel Tower, and caused Paris to be labelled as the most
polluted city in the world, even worse than Shanghai.”
Obviously something had to be done. And apparently it
worked. With a combined effort from the police fines, and motorists who understood
the number plate challenge, the clouds apparently disappeared. The article
ended with a happy comment from someone living in the city:
“ ‘Goodness,
it’s calm this morning. What a difference.’ said Rosa, a concierge sweeping the
front of a building near Boulevard Saint-Martin. ‘I can breathe,’ she added.”
Always handy to be able to breathe.
The upshot of this was that, even though we would not
normally go into the centre, Jack had already declared Paris to be ‘off-limits’
and our route would follow the west side of the country via Bordeaux.
Our first few hours of driving were uneventful. As usual
Jack entertained himself by using his mechanical engineering skills and
prodding all buttons in reach, checking plastic casings, and slewing the car
from side to side on the road to make sure the vehicle tracking was in order. The
weather was miserable with dull grey clouds covering the skies, and a mist of
fine rain which dampened the lush spring meadows. There was barely a soul
about, though, and fewer still on the autoroute. This cheered Jack up
immensely, although he took care to remind me on several occasions, that we
should savour this period of peaceful motoring, because it would assuredly all
go downhill the moment we set tyre on English soil. And it did.
Jack then set the cruise control system to fix our speed
and, with no possibility of further conversation in the offing, I decided to
try and grab a nap. I reclined my seat (only a little way because the metal
cask full of spanners directly behind prevented much movement), and nestled
into my beanbag pillow. The next few days in England were going to be action
packed, so now was the time to relax and make mental lists of the things that
needed to be done. My nap didn’t last long.
It seemed like only seconds had passed when I was jarred
awake by much shouting and swearing from Jack.
“Bloody hell! It’s just like being in England.”
“Whatever is the matter?” I asked glancing nervously back at
the dogs to make sure they hadn’t been too frightened by the commotion. Aby was
still looking out of the window for her friends and Max had now woken up and
was looking for someone to lick.
“Can you believe it?” continued Jack. “I’ve been flashed by
a blasted speed camera!” he fumed staring accusingly at me, then added “I mean,
what’s their point? There isn’t a bloody soul on the road, but now we’re going
to contribute even more to the French fiscal deficit with a speeding fine. It
all started with the Dutch. That’s where the Gatsometer first appeared. Then,
of course, it was us in the UK that seized the opportunity to turn it into a million
pound revenue opportunity. But, who would believe that the French would follow
suit, and submit themselves to this level of civil indignity. Do you remember
the good old days when we’d be driving down the autoroute at 150kph, and get
overtaken by one of those little corrugated iron Citroen vans?”
“They haven’t followed suit darling. There are nowhere near
as many cameras here.”
“That’s true I suppose. Later today we’ll be on the M25 with
all sorts of electronics telling us what the new speed limit is, despite the
fact there’s not a hope in hell of achieving anything resembling that speed.”
“And also darling, they normally have massive signs here
about 300 metres before the camera.”
“Yes they do. But this time they’ve been sneaky. When the sign
says automatique, it means a
permanent camera. When it says frequent,
it means hand-held cameras in police cars. The sign back then said frequent, so I was looking for a
policeman.”
This was in danger of turning into a political rant. We still
had a very long way to go – it definitely needed to be nipped in the bud.
“Hang on a minute darling, I thought you’d set the autopilot
system. Presumably you set it at a sensible level. Are you sure it was our car
that was flashed by the speed camera?” The desired effect was instant.
“Ah, well, yes I did. But there weren’t any other cars on the
road, so I thought we’d make up a bit of time by getting a move on. I hadn’t
bargained on there being a sneaky and misleading sign to trap me. Anyway,
you’ve snored your way past Bordeaux, and we’re well on the way to Poitiers, so
how about handing me something to eat.”
The thing about having a big old car with a diesel fuel tank
the size of an elephant is that it never seems to need filling up. This is good
for economic motoring, but bad for human bladders, well mine anyway. Before
long I knew a pit stop was necessary, so I used the dogs as an excuse to stop
somewhere convenient. Max was asleep with one eye open, and poor Aby was still
sitting bolt upright staring out of the window, trembling every now and again.
This supported my theory admirably. Jack moaned at the proposition, but saw the
sense in avoiding a water-logged car, and pulled into the next available aire. Unlike the busy service stations,
these are more of a rural stopover, particularly favoured by the motorhome
community, sleepy truck drivers, and dog owners. Amenities are usually limited,
but toilets are always provided. Unfortunately our stop coincided with a deterioration
in the weather. It was pouring.
With the dogs’ needs at the forefront of my mind I jumped
out, donned my jacket and hat, and splashed to the rear of the car. Luckily they
already had their collars on and all I needed to do was to attach the
extendable leads. Now, I should have
been prepared for what came next, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me. The dogs
had apparently decided that the moment had finally arrived – they were going
for a country walk! Such was their state of excitement that it took ages to secure
the clips. Unfortunately, in the melee, I hadn’t engaged the brake system on
the extendable leads so when I opened the door they exploded out of the back
and shot off towards the bank. Terrified of letting go, I clung on for dear
life as the leads maxed-out to their full length. This caused me to look like an
eccentric water-skier as I was towed up the hill by our extremely excited dogs,
who were now hell-bent on out-racing one another. This could only end in tears.
I accept that my handling of the situation may not have constituted
a perfect demonstration in dog obedience. Equally, I felt Jack’s comments about
controlling the ‘bloody animals before you get impaled on a twig’ from the
comfort of the car park, were uncalled for. Fortunately though, there was a
soft, dense hedge that subdued our exuberant animals, and provided a nice
cushioned bumper for me. They then spent one or two moments scuffling around
while I collected myself. Regrettably, Aby then saw a car pull in. Being of an extremely
sociable variety, both dogs abruptly stopped what they were doing, and before I
could issue a command, whizzed off back down the bank to perform a canine ‘meet
and greet’. I’d barely caught my breath let alone connected the blasted brakes
on the extendable leads before I was propelled back down after them, ploughing
a furrow with my heels as I fought to regain control of the unruly mutts. I
finally reeled them in, apologised to the car owners for the possibly unwanted
licks, and poured the dogs back into the car. With calm restored, I then scurried
off to the dames to use the
facilities, and repair my wounded pride. As we set off I had to endure Jack’s
usual musings about the ineptitude of my dog-control tactics, and I decided, on
this occasion, it would be fruitless to respond with any form of brilliant defence.
Largely because there wasn’t one.
With Jack still at the wheel we continued past Poitiers and
through Tours, which stands on the lower reaches of the river Loire. This is
known as the ‘Garden of France’ (Le
Jardin de la France) because of the many parks located within the city.
Well worth a visit, that’s for sure, but not for us, and possibly for anyone on
that day. The wind was blowing a gale, and rain was now lashing down as we
passed over the magnificent river which made this, usually beautiful, view very
difficult to see at all.
The fuel indicator eventually hiccupped and dropped a
fraction, enough for Jack to decide we needed to fill-up. He fought the
buffeting car into a service station and we performed a speedy re-fuel and
refreshment stop. It was my turn to take the wheel. We headed towards Le Mans,
today most famed for the sports motorcar endurance race, 24 Hours of Le Mans. This area between Tours and Rouen is liberally
peppered with wind turbines. Looking like toy windmills for giants. They line
the autoroute in garish metallic clumps, providing a visual clue about the
prevailing weather conditions. I’m not sure whether I like them or not but I
certainly couldn’t spend time deliberating that small point. The weather was
getting much worse now. The windscreen wipers swept our screen in vain, and the
car was rocked from side to side by vicious gusts. In fact the conditions were
so poor that they caused Jack to comment, “Honestly it’s impossible to get even
a wink of sleep with you at the wheel,
can you try and keep the car on the road please?” But I think he knew that it was seriously tough
going so, instead of dozing, he fiddled with the Satnav controls, pretending to
adjust our onward route towards Calais.
For some mysterious reason, much of the autoroute here was
reduced to one lane. Plastic cones, mostly in place, others having been blown
to non-sensible places, identified the permitted zones for motorists. But there
was no other evidence of activity or works. Luckily there were very few other motorists
on the road, so our progress wasn’t hampered beyond a reduced speed limit, which
I adhered to with great smugness. I was concentrating so hard on missing the
chicane of misplaced cones, that I hadn’t realised that Satnav lady was taking
us off our normal route through Rouen. Suddenly I was directed onto what can
only be described as an elderly ‘B’ road. This took us along the banks of what I
suppose must be the river Seine. On my left I could just spot a sad looking
river cruise boat valiantly fighting its way through the waves, with windows
tightly shut but no sign of passengers. To our left we were both surprised by
what we saw. It looked like we had driven into a village in Switzerland. The
houses, rather like our road, were tiny and looked just like chalets with sloping
roofs and wood cladding. Interesting as this all was, we were on a mission and I
was getting concerned that we might be heading in the wrong direction. Jack occupied himself by stabbing more
buttons on the Satnav system, and accidentally shutting it down altogether on
one or two occasions. But he decided that actually all was well. We eventually emerged
from our mystery tour, and re-connected with our customary route through the
outskirts of Rouen. We’ve never visited this city, but the glimpses one gets of
the magnificent cathedral from the bypass, cause me to put it on our list of
‘must-visit’ locations. 
We’d been on the road for nearly ten hours now, and the
signs for the Eurotunnel came as a welcome sight. We drove into the precincts
of the pet passport office. Weather conditions had been upgraded to ‘appalling’
and tensions were rising, as they always do, when we arrive here. Jack did
nothing to calm my administrative nerves. “Right, let’s hope you and your vet
pals haven’t messed up the documents this time. I’ll bring in the dogs while
you start conning the officials into letting us on that train – which, by the
way, is about to leave.” I fumbled around for the dogs’ passports and assorted
papers, and forged through the driving wind and rain that lashed the carpark,
hanging on to everything for grim death in case an indispensable sheet of information
was whipped from my hand and lost forever.
Luckily we were the only customers in the pet passport
office and our documents were taken by a nice efficient-looking officer. As she
was thumbing conscientiously through each page the door was thrown open and in
burst a dripping wet Jack looking as thunderous as the weather, with our two
bouncing beauties. The girl then handed over the microchip scanner, which
happily bleeped at the right times on the dogs’ necks, which was a great relief
to everyone concerned. Now it could officially be confirmed that we had in fact
driven through France with the correct dogs. She replaced her wand in its nice
box on the counter. I genuinely thought we were home and dry when she cried,
“Aha, a problem with your papers I am afraid
madame.” I couldn’t even look at Jack. I was terrified. It really couldn’t
be possible, could it? The thought of, once again, being prevented from
boarding the train because of a paperwork mistake, was just too much to
contemplate. There was an audible groan behind me followed by a bang. Jack had
left the building.
“Um what’s the problem?” I quailed.
“I am afraid that you have not written in the date when the
microchip was implanted madame. This
is against the rules. Do you have the original certificate? This will give you
the date. If you do not have it, then I am sorry, but I cannot let you
through.” Thank goodness for my satchel!
Fortunately where travel with our pets is concerned I carry around a
satchel-full of their documents. I stuffed my hand in and produced a wad of
likely looking certificates. “Bravo madame,
here it is, now there is no problem” said the angelic officer with a smile, “but
the box in the passport must be filled.” I could have fainted with relief.
“Oh lovely, that’s super. Could you fill it in for me
please, I don’t have a pen with me.”
“Oh non madame, this
is forbidden, you must complete the form yourself. Here, you may use my pen.”
“It’s just the date, right?”
“Yes, just the date madame.”
Choosing not to question the special nature of my date
filling-in capabilities compared to hers, I thanked my lucky stars that this
was the only problem. The deed was done and we were waved off by those lovely,
lovely, officials and onto the train.
That was it. We had made it unscathed through France. We
just had the final leg in England to go, which we reckoned would take a further
three hours, or five depending on the traffic, which was an absolute certainty
acc
ording to my pessimistic driver.
The dogs were fascinated by the train, but otherwise fine.
Even Aby had stopped trembling. Jack settled back in the seat, grabbed a
beanbag cushion and announced that he was going to have a well-earned nap. “And
remind me” he added, “never to allow you to drive in breezy conditions again.
You’re a complete death trap!” With that he was soon snoring. I sat back, thrilled to have passed the pet
passport challenge and was just about to join Jack in a nap when I had a sudden
moment of tension. Poor Brutus! What if his food dish hadn’t been washed?
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