Day 28 - 06.01.2025 - Hallines nr Saint-Omer (France) to Home

Up at 05:40 this morning - a bit of a rough night last night waking up sooooo hot I couldn't breathe and acid reflux - shit, just shoot me!

Anyway, packed, breakfast and ran out of hot water 3/4 the way through the first shower and there is sleeping for 6 in this place!! The place was just about upto temperature when we left, turning all the heaters off again! And I took the first 2 cases down to the car. 

Now the patio outside the door to the AirBnB was an ice rink as the air con unit had been on all night; but I made it past that, down the first set of 10 or so concrete steps, which were icy; along the walkway (again covered in snow and ice - it was -5°C); and after about the 4th step down the second set of about 15 concrete steps which were in shadow, both my legs shot out from under me and I bounced down the next 10 or so on my back! OUCH!!

I picked myself up carefully - nothing felt broken, just sore - and put the cases in the boot.

Then very carefully back up the stairs to fetch the next load. I normally pack the car in 4 trips, but carrying  one thing at a time after my fall, I had to do 7 more careful ascents and descents before going back to help Marie very carefully down!

The owners had gone out, but not before turning off the car charger after charging us to use it! Luckily BB was at 90+%.

We finally left at 07:45 and had a trepid drive drive for a few miles down very snowy and icy lanes until we got to the Autoroute.

We arrived at the Cité Europe shopping centre at Coquelles adjacent to the Channel Tunnel an hour later and headed into Carrefour.

We were in the supermarket about 2 hours and it was very good - the wine prices were exceptional.

Packed BB - she was starting to feel her weight when cornering now and headed to the Tunnel. We were 2 hours early for our train, but we got moved forward to the next one.

At 12:30 local time we drove onto a British motorway and headed home.

A quick blizzard and a bit of sunshine later we stopped at 13:47 at Thurrock Services (again) for a quick charge of 14mins and a much needed comfort break. We picked up some milk from M&S and headed off home up the M11 and A1.

We got home at 16:30 after 5500miles in 4 weeks!

We were greeted by Joe, Jade and Pete. Then a little girl appeared who seemed very pleased to see us by the hugs we got - we had missed everyone, especially Astrid!