Is to leave on Sunday 12 March overnight on old faithful
Armorique. From Portsmouth (groan) as BF don’t start sailing from Plymouth until 23 March. But that means we go into St Malo, which is always a treat.
However, things in the Hexagon are less than rosy. Endless strikes about Pension Reform. The country is up in arms because France’s answer to Rishi, Emmanuel Macron, wants to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 and they don’t like it. We look on in wonderment as trains, planes, schools, lorry drivers, refineries, refuse collectors etc etc all down tools with pretty much mass public support. Like the three Yorkshiremen sketch we chorus “64? Luxury! Why in the UK we have to toil until 67 and for far less benefit.” But your Frenchman loves a street protest and so it is proving a touch worrying as to whether there will be any petroleum distillate for our journey south.
Then there’s the weather. What to pack? FGS it’s snowing here today. Have I enough jumpers? Will it suddenly turn tropical somewhere around Millau? Nightmare as ever.
Join me for the next instalment of Englishfolk Abroad!
