Southbound again

It rained for pretty much the whole of Friday afternoon, and we spent it huddled in the beer tent, out of what was by then a chilly wind. Megan has a special way of looking miserable, shivering occasionally to emphasise the point. Mind you, she does choose to sit out in the drizzle, too, rather than in the tent on the bed with the rest of us. Never mind, says, Dad, with 24 different real-ales to choose from, they're well set up.

With the general chill and wet, and a sick car to nurse home, we decide to strike camp Saturday morning after a good latte from Cafe-Solo man (we love the Citroen chevrons he draws in the white foam top, with darker foam!). There's nobody about as we pack up. We dogs watch the pack-up from the warm and dry of the car back seat. Only little Theo and his bro' come to see us and pester us one last time.

On the road we must remember that we effectively only have the top third of the fuel tank to play with, and with the range on a 2CV being 200 miles if you're lucky, we must stop and buy another £7's worth every 60-70 miles. A pain, and rather confusing for the dogs, who expect to drive for 2 hours, then get out and have a stretch of the legs, maybe re-fuelling, maybe not. The "normal" car does 660 miles between fill-ups! And so we chug southwards seeing the county markers click past - Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex. We slot in behind HGV's again to hit that relaxing 56-60 mph groove. Not too close - we're not "tailgating" here or trying to slipstream anybody.

And so the hours go by and we cruise home uneventfully, except for one little palpitation. We'd pushed the "70 miles" a bit close to the wire, refuelling in Peterborough, then doing the A14, M11, M25 bit all in one run (no easy services), and on the sharp left hander, M25 to A2, the fuel sloshes to the right of the tank and she sucks air, doing a couple of kangaroos, just to give Dad heart failure. Dad nurses the car to the Northfleet fill-up. Sorted. We complete the 290 miles home in 6 and a half hours.

Of course, now that we've given up camping, the sun's come out, so Dad's able unpack the tent and hang it across the garden to dry it and clean off the cow-pats before packing it up.

Dad texts 2CV Llew about the fuel problems. Llew (love that guy!) re-assures us it's not a biggie, and he can fix it one evening this week.

A quiet evening unpacking, cleaning stuff, getting clean from camping grunge (but not for dogs yet).

That brings us to Sunday morning, when we listen to the rain drumming down and we are delighted we are home, dry and safe, not still on that site thinking about packing a very wet tent up in the rain. Megan is positively luxuriating in the warm clean (new) bed linen. Mum puts it on the bed when we go away.... something about wanting to feel ladylike for once, and not wrapped around with mingin' dogs and husbands. (Goes to town - make-up, scented candles, nice wine, posh table linen, girlie film, chic-lit, etc) The Nerve....

Deefer