Welcome back, everyone! As spring, Easter and the holidays are approaching, Aramis and I take off for another adventure.
Once more, we’re visiting the UK, but this time we mean business: if everything goes well, we’ll end up in Stornoway, Scotland. I have a friend who works there, so this is a great opportunity to catch up with a wonderful human being and to discover a whole new part of the UK.
Aramis has known for a while that I have been brooding over new travel plans. He’s been watching my every move for the past few days and has not missed a single step. His radar for spotting upcoming travels is virtually infallible. I wish I had been able to tell him in advance that he needn’t worry and that he’d be allowed to join me.
So, this morning, I put our bags in the car, and locked up the house.
Before setting off, we went for a nice walk in the morning sun. The farmers have been getting their strawberry fields ready and some of the trees are already in full bloom. It is so beautiful around here and that does make it rather hard to leave!
As school has just ended and I got back late from a long and busy day of work yesterday, I do not yet feel quite prepared for such a long journey. Stornoway is about 2000 km (over 1200 miles) away from home and it’ll take around 30 hours to drive all the way up there. Fortunately, we will be stopping in London over Easter for a bit of a break and to see some of our best friends, before we head up north.
At 8 o’clock straight we said our last goodbyes, and got comfortable in the car. I asked my sat nav (still the app I used last time) to show me the way to Calais ferry terminal, put on an audio book (Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre’s Panikherz: baffling, brash, brilliant and, well, bulimic), fired up Gudrun’s engine and off we went.
We got stuck in two major traffic jams which robbed us of two solid hours of travel. It was already 7 pm when we reached our hotel in Lens, where we are staying for the night.
As we were jaunting through France, Aramis was anxious, worried and hot. Several, sometimes prolonged stops at a variety of French ‘aires,’ did not help him relax. A tell-tale sign of his being agitated was that I found it difficult to encourage him to drink. The weather was hot – up to 25°C and sunny – so he must have been thirsty. Whenever we stopped he was quite ready to sniff the ground and explore the environment, he even found a slice of bacon and wolfed it down, but seemed happiest whenever I asked him to get back into the car.
When we arrived in Lens, we went for a short walk and had dinner. As soon as Aramis realised that the hotel room is where we will be spending the night, he visibly relaxed, curled up and went to sleep. I will try to do just the same as soon as I have booked the ferry which will (hopefully) take us across the channel tomorrow.
We’ve driven almost 800 km today.
The Adventures of Aramis 