Foreign Perspectives

Hi folks,

We picked up the truck Thursday two weeks back and spent the next two days packing up the house, right up to midnight on the Friday! A 0740 boat meant very little sleep that night and a hurried departure (just made the boat and no more).

Somehow we managed to get down to Dover by about 11pm that night (way further than planned but I wanted to get past Birmingham, then London and then there weren’t any hotels `til we reached Dover). Around then the police stopped us and were all set to arrest us for having an overweight lorry but it was only 4900 kg so that was OK but left us checking in around midnight.

We slept in and caught a ferry around noon and all was going swimmingly `til Wendy started flashing the lights etc. That’s when we discovered a shredded tyre. The towing guy pointed out that the other inside tyre was about to go too. French towing guys are generally useless. That’s all they do. Anyway, on Sunday we were stuck in northern France as nothing is open on Sundays here. The garage they sent us to on Monday didn’t do trucks and neither did anyone else in the area so we’d to call the rental place again (the out of hours guy on Sunday was totally useless: he said “just jack it up and change the tyre” which a) is dangerous on a truck and b) isn’t possible on a loaded truck with the gear they give you). Anyway, eventually they organised a guy to sort us out but that meant another night in Cambrai.

Tuesday and Wednesday went fine at least and we ended up here around 7pm on the Wednesday, with the whole truck unloaded by Thursday lunchtime. Too late to leave it back before the Easter break though so I didn’t get back to Belfast `til Wednesday afternoon (after three days of driving), just in time to catch the plane to here on Thursday morning.

Nearly forgot… got the truck virtually taken apart in Dover by customs. I don’t think they believed me when I said I’d not bought anything!

Anyway, I’m here now.

We got our very first customer on Sunday the 11th and, contrary to JS’s expectations, they paid EUR6 each for a continental breakfast. They even gave us a tip!

Can’t get rid of a French couple who turned up on Tuesday so I guess we’re doing something right and the people from our first travel agent booking are arriving this Sunday.

Everyone was off for Easter so I couldn’t get the wine shop stocked, hence lack of crates at the door of Rosepark, David. However, I should be back in October (possibly earlier too) so could probably fill the trailer. Incidently, David, could you recommend a wine magazine? We’re trying to stock up our lounge with magazines to cater for the various types of clients but didn’t see any wine mags when I looked the last few days (turned up here with a way, way overweight bag of mags!).

Sooo, when are y’all coming over to visit?

Arnold