So after we left Pegasus Bridge Museum, we wanted to try and sort some where to have a meal before we got on the boat at Ouistreham. I had been there before, though some years ago, and recollected that there was not a great deal in the way of restaurants. Our scheduled departure time was 2300 and as soon as we got on board, I wanted a drink, then straight to sleep as we would be arriving at 0630 UK time. I looked online but – it was a Monday so it seems all the local restaurants were closed…. we ended up at DogBurgers ! Now, Le Dogburgers menu is a tad different than the crap that is served in the UK – I was pleasantly surprised, and we ate well.

Suitably refreshed, we moved onto the ferry port terminal, and settled down to wait. As we started to filter through customs and passport control there was a an awful lot of waiting around and:

One other thing of note as we waited was that we were selected by a member of the Douane for a check with his very beautiful Belgian Shepherd Dog – the dog was in a round Ziggy like a flash having a really good sniff everywhere. (Didn’t spend to long near the laundry basket i did notice….) And beautiful it may have been, but when it was close to me, I understood why it was muzzled… Anyway, nothing was found, and as he left us, the officer left a card on our windscreen – and that helped us enormously the following morning when we arrived back in Blighty. Once onboard, i settled down and slept – having set an alarm for the first time in weeks. Thing is – i made an error somewhere as my apple watch had a different idea of what the time was – either way we were up earlier than we should have been 🙁 After a simple breakfast we watched the sights of Portsmouth as we arrived home to the UK.

We docked on time and were off the ferry by 0615 – thanks to the card on our windscreen we went straight through customs and were on the A3 heading north to that wonderful M25 by 0630! I had visions – and the satnav indicated, that we would be back home by 1100 – that was until there was an accident, with closed lanes that delayed us – in total – by three hours 🙁 We arrived back home and the odometer showed a mileage of 27010 – so in total we drove 1338 miles.

Now, over the past few weeks, I have written 13 blog posts including this one. I have taken the time to read them back over the last day or so, and tried to work out what was the best bit – and the answer was all of it! (Bar Jo feeling unwell of course). We managed to pack an awful lot in over the 16 days or so of our trip; Would we do it again – oh yes! I really enjoyed just going with the flow and not planning trips or visits – the few planned trips were at the end of the journey and were thoroughly enjoyed. It would be easy to say that we would go back to the places we stayed – actually, we wouldn’t as where is the sense of exploration in that? So – in closing, Carpe Diem – and go out and enjoy all that life has to offer.