Saying goodbye to the Queens country

We finally set off today, about 3 weeks late! After months of planning it all felt a bit surreal to actually be in Gertie (that’s our van) and hitting the open road. Jacques was certainly better at saying goodbye than me, I was in floods of tears as we pulled out of Mum & Dad’s driveway and didn’t stop crying until our first stop in Southbourne.

We had decided to stop a few times on our way to Portsmouth to visit friends and family. First stop was Southbourne to see Al and Kate and their adorable new baby Skye Rose who slept throughout our fleeting visit, in spite of Jacques’ ear splitting decibels! Next stop was Southampton to see Jacques’ grandparents, Blanche and Eric, who very kindly filled us up with tea and biscuits knowing that it would our last good feed for a few months!

We got to Portsmouth at about 8pm and the ferry wasn’t due to leave until 11pm so we decided to christen Gertie (not what you’re thinking!) and cook our dinner in the queue for the ferry. This was it- proper travellers! We cracked open one of the cans of food kindly supplied by my Mum & Dad and celebrated the beginning of our trip with some lovely Lidl macaroni cheese- yum! Corny as it sounds we love cooking and eating in Gertie, it feels like such a big adventure, even when you’re sat in Portsmouth with other people gawping through your windows waiting for a ferry on a rainy Sunday night.

Much to our surprise the bargain ferry we had booked turned out to be really nice and the sleeper seats were just like those pictures of the beds for first class travellers on Virgin Atlantic flights- they were so comfortable- the only problem being that Jacques and I had omitted to actually bring any pillows or blankets out of the van. We had to make do with lying on the sticky faux leather upholstery of the sleeper seats, positioning them at a slight upright angle to make us feel like we had pillows and shivering away with nothing to cover us whilst our fellow (smug) travellers were snuggling under their duvets.

To make matters worse at about 4am when everyone must have simultaneously reached a lovely deep level of sleep there was a crescendo of snoring, spluttering and groaning. Seriously, I am not exaggerating it sounded like we were surrounded by snuffling, truffling pigs and it was getting louder by the second.

I grumpily started to grind my teeth in anger and glared at each offending truffeler,s whilst they blissfully continued to snort smiling in their sleeping contentedness, which made me even angrier. Jacques sensibly left me to the teeth

grinding and went to get a coffee.