When things get too much, run away to France
Everything pretty much got too much for me and I broke badly last Thursday.
On Friday, I came back, as arranged, to be with my parents over Easter, it being traditional, like. The journey down was not very nice: they closed the West Coast and the only way to London was via Chiltern, who were good and efficient until a signal failure caused the train to come to come to a grinding stop for about an hour and a bit.
I eventually arrived home in time to sit with my dad and wait the hour or two to go and collect my mother who was returning from Poland to Luton Airport. She managed to get through really quickly, so she was actually waiting for us when we arrived.
Saturday, pplfichi came over and we chatted a bit about stuff, then I shouted at him and he left because I kicked him out. My mother posted the key for me by registered delivery in the morning, so I'm relieved that that is out of the way. The police aren't going to hound me anymore and I hope that it sees an end to the threats coming from my ex-housemate, because they were doing me in.
Sunday we had the Easter Breakfast with my grandparents. It was really pleasant up until my grandma brought up the Housing Association's maintenence on her block, where the HA had suddenly and for no particular reason, demanded that they pay the whole maintenence in one go. Dad was not happy as this was too much like his everyday work of being a councillor. However, he took a look at the letter, determined that the HA had simply checked whether granddad whether granddad had paid and whether he was on the Direct Debit register. As granddad was paying by standing order, both conditions were true and thus the HA asked for their money, having obviously forgotten the agreement to pay by standing order. Granddad was happy about this and wanted to go and sort it out. Grandma was not. She has the paranoid the-council-is-out-to-screw-us-over and feels that granddad is too trusting with paying what the HA is demanding. She kept hammering on about it and dad stormed out, leaving my grandmother in tears.
I picked up the whole thing, got everyone talking to everyone else. I nearly got everyone to some level of consensus until my grandmother turned on me in paranoid fury. I used to be good at that. It was always me who picked up the pieces after other disastrous family groupings. I used to do quite well until I completely forgot the knack of it. At least these no longer happen because dad drinks, it's just my grandmother is old and it's (no pun intended) killing her to be lucid and yet so dependent on other people who don't care because she hasn't mastered the knack of asking and not bludgeoning.
After that, my mother decided that we should leave the country, so we got in the car, went to Birmingham, picked up my passport (I hadn't been expecting to travel).
Monday morning, we calmly woke up and drove out to Dover. It was a lovely day and we got there in nice time for a midday crossing. We'd checked through and were waiting to embark on the ferry when dad did his back in trying to affix the light beam deflectors on the front. We didn't know about it until he mentioned it in the first class lounge and we were watching the world go by outside the windows. For now, it was ok, but he had some bad problems in the past and we were all worried about it.
We arrived in Dunkirk, France and set off for the hotel. We drove along the Departmentals instead of the Route Nationals or the Autoroutes and wound through some very picturesque countryside still dappled in a few places with snow. It was very quiet and peaceful. The land near the coast is very flat, but then it becomes rolling with the occasional sudden sharp drop in level. The D roads twist and turn through some lovely villages and occasionally go around them. I was glad I had a map from one of dad's previous forays into the area. It had the all the roads in sufficient detail that you could make out the junctions. This proved to be exceedingly useful as the D roads merge and diverge and only the lowest numbered D road is signposted. Thus the 224, which we ended up following, vanished many a time, under the 218 and the 197 to name just two. It was easier to just read the map and do the junctions on the fly than following road signs and just reassuring my parents that, after all the twisty turns and, yes, three lefts, we were still going the same way.
We arrived at the hotel, which was a Chateau. Chateau des Tourettes, I think, to give it its full name, in Le Wast, Pays de Calais. It was a charming place and we sat down to eat in the restaurant having come so far.
We sat down at the very fancy restaurant and decided, because it was late, and we were tired, that the French custom of the set menu and the fresh plat du jour was a jolly good one and we would all have this.
If Britain is too dismissive about its food, France is too fussy. We were given food, and it was good, but it wasn't very tasty or eatable, if that makes any sense. We had some fish conconction, involving jelly and a mousse. It was nice for the first few mouthfuls but not after. Then there was a lovely stewed lamb with kidney with some kind of heavy, flavoursome stodge which they called a risotto, but no Italian would call so. Again, the meat was good and well cooked, the flavours in the risotto interesting but, overall, it was not a meal. Finally, we finished with something that should have been like a crumble, but wasn't and my mum had the cheeses, the only part of the meal she enjoyed. To add to this meal, we had some good French wine (now there is a reason to go to France) and the bread was awesome.
Sleeping the night, I woke up every so often with a very dry throat. I think I have come down with a cold some days earlier. However, I am not sniffling enough and not feeling anywhere depressed enough to be sure. Still, it gave me an appetite and a general level of groginess.
We woke up, breakfasted and I treated myself to a luxurious hot bath at leisure in the morning. Eventually, when I was finished, we got going to do some sightseeing . We first went to see Tresiquet (I think), a resort town made famous for being one of the only airports within easy flying range of Paris and London in the early days of air travel. The jet set would meet here and even now it has s spacious, American feel, with lots of lovely homes perched in the middle of a plot of land, all linked by curbless grid-pattern streets. As for the seaside part, which was very cold and windy, dad said it reminded him of Bournemouth, only more chic. We strolled along the Rue des Londres and sat in a bar to have an overpriced coffee. In the morning, dad's back was in more pain, so mum was driving and dad navigated a bit and I got to feel the whole confusion of sitting in the back, turning thrice left, doubling back on ourselves, nipping through the town and turning once more without the map.
After that, we headed for Montreil (again, I think), which was a very picturesque hilltop town with walls, lovely church and a citadel. But it was still cold and windy, so we gave up and went back to the hotel, where we had a nap for two hours (which everyone agreed later was a good idea), got in the car and went for dinner.
Last time, dad and two mates went for a trip to this part of France, and they stayed nearer St Omer, which is a more traditional tourist site. Anyway, one of the mates was a foodie, and after circumnavigating the town square three times, chose the restaurant at which they ate. Like most good restaurants, this was not the most visually appealing one there (i.e. just off the square in a cellar). Dad swore by the food, so this is where we went for dinner. We all started with a salad of some kind, had a beef in beer stew (of some kind) and then diverged for desert. I had a lovely fish salad with wonderful salmon pate. The beef stew was tasty and hearty, the chips were divine and there was a strange cauliflower mush which looked unappealingly grey and lumpy but tasted good too. I finished by tasting the local cheeses (which were gooood.....).
We came back all worn out and I went to bed, only to find I couldn't sleep for several hours while I tossed and turned. I ended up getting up and writing down some of the things circling inside my head and this seemed to help.
We woke up the next morning, had breakfast, which my now none of us could actually stomach, seeing how rich the croissants were, packed up and left to go home. We had intended to visit something, but dad's back was worse, I was grumpy and easily tired and generally, we all felt that we should be home (except dad, who wanted to be home, but didn't want to go back to England. I think he is too stressed, like me).
We got to the ferry early and had to pay to board it seeing as we were very early, but we had somehow got a free upgrade to first class for the way back, so it all worked out ok. The ferry journey back was uneventful and uninterested and we arrived back in England.
You come back to England from the continent and there's pretty much one idea that's foremost in your mind: how packed we are. This impression is conveyed by how much more of everything there is: more cars on the roads, more houses lining the roads, less space. Even the empty roads are twice as busy as empty roads in France. It's quite a shock.
Anyway, I'm back now. Either tomorrow or early Friday I return to Birmingham. I don't wanna.
On Friday, I came back, as arranged, to be with my parents over Easter, it being traditional, like. The journey down was not very nice: they closed the West Coast and the only way to London was via Chiltern, who were good and efficient until a signal failure caused the train to come to come to a grinding stop for about an hour and a bit.
I eventually arrived home in time to sit with my dad and wait the hour or two to go and collect my mother who was returning from Poland to Luton Airport. She managed to get through really quickly, so she was actually waiting for us when we arrived.
Saturday, pplfichi came over and we chatted a bit about stuff, then I shouted at him and he left because I kicked him out. My mother posted the key for me by registered delivery in the morning, so I'm relieved that that is out of the way. The police aren't going to hound me anymore and I hope that it sees an end to the threats coming from my ex-housemate, because they were doing me in.
Sunday we had the Easter Breakfast with my grandparents. It was really pleasant up until my grandma brought up the Housing Association's maintenence on her block, where the HA had suddenly and for no particular reason, demanded that they pay the whole maintenence in one go. Dad was not happy as this was too much like his everyday work of being a councillor. However, he took a look at the letter, determined that the HA had simply checked whether granddad whether granddad had paid and whether he was on the Direct Debit register. As granddad was paying by standing order, both conditions were true and thus the HA asked for their money, having obviously forgotten the agreement to pay by standing order. Granddad was happy about this and wanted to go and sort it out. Grandma was not. She has the paranoid the-council-is-out-to-screw-us-over and feels that granddad is too trusting with paying what the HA is demanding. She kept hammering on about it and dad stormed out, leaving my grandmother in tears.
I picked up the whole thing, got everyone talking to everyone else. I nearly got everyone to some level of consensus until my grandmother turned on me in paranoid fury. I used to be good at that. It was always me who picked up the pieces after other disastrous family groupings. I used to do quite well until I completely forgot the knack of it. At least these no longer happen because dad drinks, it's just my grandmother is old and it's (no pun intended) killing her to be lucid and yet so dependent on other people who don't care because she hasn't mastered the knack of asking and not bludgeoning.
After that, my mother decided that we should leave the country, so we got in the car, went to Birmingham, picked up my passport (I hadn't been expecting to travel).
Monday morning, we calmly woke up and drove out to Dover. It was a lovely day and we got there in nice time for a midday crossing. We'd checked through and were waiting to embark on the ferry when dad did his back in trying to affix the light beam deflectors on the front. We didn't know about it until he mentioned it in the first class lounge and we were watching the world go by outside the windows. For now, it was ok, but he had some bad problems in the past and we were all worried about it.
We arrived in Dunkirk, France and set off for the hotel. We drove along the Departmentals instead of the Route Nationals or the Autoroutes and wound through some very picturesque countryside still dappled in a few places with snow. It was very quiet and peaceful. The land near the coast is very flat, but then it becomes rolling with the occasional sudden sharp drop in level. The D roads twist and turn through some lovely villages and occasionally go around them. I was glad I had a map from one of dad's previous forays into the area. It had the all the roads in sufficient detail that you could make out the junctions. This proved to be exceedingly useful as the D roads merge and diverge and only the lowest numbered D road is signposted. Thus the 224, which we ended up following, vanished many a time, under the 218 and the 197 to name just two. It was easier to just read the map and do the junctions on the fly than following road signs and just reassuring my parents that, after all the twisty turns and, yes, three lefts, we were still going the same way.
We arrived at the hotel, which was a Chateau. Chateau des Tourettes, I think, to give it its full name, in Le Wast, Pays de Calais. It was a charming place and we sat down to eat in the restaurant having come so far.
We sat down at the very fancy restaurant and decided, because it was late, and we were tired, that the French custom of the set menu and the fresh plat du jour was a jolly good one and we would all have this.
If Britain is too dismissive about its food, France is too fussy. We were given food, and it was good, but it wasn't very tasty or eatable, if that makes any sense. We had some fish conconction, involving jelly and a mousse. It was nice for the first few mouthfuls but not after. Then there was a lovely stewed lamb with kidney with some kind of heavy, flavoursome stodge which they called a risotto, but no Italian would call so. Again, the meat was good and well cooked, the flavours in the risotto interesting but, overall, it was not a meal. Finally, we finished with something that should have been like a crumble, but wasn't and my mum had the cheeses, the only part of the meal she enjoyed. To add to this meal, we had some good French wine (now there is a reason to go to France) and the bread was awesome.
Sleeping the night, I woke up every so often with a very dry throat. I think I have come down with a cold some days earlier. However, I am not sniffling enough and not feeling anywhere depressed enough to be sure. Still, it gave me an appetite and a general level of groginess.
We woke up, breakfasted and I treated myself to a luxurious hot bath at leisure in the morning. Eventually, when I was finished, we got going to do some sightseeing . We first went to see Tresiquet (I think), a resort town made famous for being one of the only airports within easy flying range of Paris and London in the early days of air travel. The jet set would meet here and even now it has s spacious, American feel, with lots of lovely homes perched in the middle of a plot of land, all linked by curbless grid-pattern streets. As for the seaside part, which was very cold and windy, dad said it reminded him of Bournemouth, only more chic. We strolled along the Rue des Londres and sat in a bar to have an overpriced coffee. In the morning, dad's back was in more pain, so mum was driving and dad navigated a bit and I got to feel the whole confusion of sitting in the back, turning thrice left, doubling back on ourselves, nipping through the town and turning once more without the map.
After that, we headed for Montreil (again, I think), which was a very picturesque hilltop town with walls, lovely church and a citadel. But it was still cold and windy, so we gave up and went back to the hotel, where we had a nap for two hours (which everyone agreed later was a good idea), got in the car and went for dinner.
Last time, dad and two mates went for a trip to this part of France, and they stayed nearer St Omer, which is a more traditional tourist site. Anyway, one of the mates was a foodie, and after circumnavigating the town square three times, chose the restaurant at which they ate. Like most good restaurants, this was not the most visually appealing one there (i.e. just off the square in a cellar). Dad swore by the food, so this is where we went for dinner. We all started with a salad of some kind, had a beef in beer stew (of some kind) and then diverged for desert. I had a lovely fish salad with wonderful salmon pate. The beef stew was tasty and hearty, the chips were divine and there was a strange cauliflower mush which looked unappealingly grey and lumpy but tasted good too. I finished by tasting the local cheeses (which were gooood.....).
We came back all worn out and I went to bed, only to find I couldn't sleep for several hours while I tossed and turned. I ended up getting up and writing down some of the things circling inside my head and this seemed to help.
We woke up the next morning, had breakfast, which my now none of us could actually stomach, seeing how rich the croissants were, packed up and left to go home. We had intended to visit something, but dad's back was worse, I was grumpy and easily tired and generally, we all felt that we should be home (except dad, who wanted to be home, but didn't want to go back to England. I think he is too stressed, like me).
We got to the ferry early and had to pay to board it seeing as we were very early, but we had somehow got a free upgrade to first class for the way back, so it all worked out ok. The ferry journey back was uneventful and uninterested and we arrived back in England.
You come back to England from the continent and there's pretty much one idea that's foremost in your mind: how packed we are. This impression is conveyed by how much more of everything there is: more cars on the roads, more houses lining the roads, less space. Even the empty roads are twice as busy as empty roads in France. It's quite a shock.
Anyway, I'm back now. Either tomorrow or early Friday I return to Birmingham. I don't wanna.