Le Touquet.... Eventually

It was a leisurely start but I awoke at 6.10am to birdsong, caught up on blip and promptly fell back asleep, really heavily. After a nice sit down breakfast with C, L and A we got on the road to Folkestone at 9.25am. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Tunnel we found queues and delays of an hour and a half owing to an earlier problem in the tunnel.

So we joined the thronging hoards in the terminal and bought mags and papers and coffee by which time, having negotiated the (very British and good natured) queues, it was time to get back to the car. We then spent another 40 minutes in the car queues, had the car frisked for drugs and explosives, got the all clear (phew!) and eventually boarded the train.

After (yet more) long queues for the on board (and rather unpleasant) loos we had an uneventful journey and then motored down to Le Touquet. We had a sound lunch (crepe for me) in a promenade tourist cafe and then enjoyed a super bare foot, warm but windy walk along this (blipped) boardwalk. There were a reasonable amount of people in the ever receding sea, ten or so kite surfers and plenty of sunbathers and families enjoying the sun. It wasn't scorching but it was delightful. We will return when we haven't been delayed and discover the town which looked rather nice...

Back in Calais, we visited the hypermarche and I acquired a nice new beach towel for the summer, bought some bread and cheese for tea and got back to Canterbury for 7.30pm. Most civilised. I'm quite tired. I can't believe how exhausting a day out can be sometimes!

The news is that C tells me she has secured a free flat in the St. Denis quarter of Paris for the whole of August and has invited me to spend a long weekend with her. Sounds fab. I haven't been to Paris since 1998 and can't wait to rediscover it.....

Oh and there's a pub lunch to look forward to tomorrow....