We left Neiderhausen for our journey to Wavre near Brussels with a stop in Boppard, a town on the Rhine. The stop included an optional river cruise lunch; we’d opted out. This meant we had around 4 hours to kill in a town with little to commend it. After a stroll around town and along the walkway beside the river, it began to rain, serious rain.

Our usual strategy. Find a café.

We fell upon a bar with outside tables under awnings. We had drinks and Margaret tucked in to a brockwūrst. More drinks followed as the rain continued. Opposite was a shop similar in stock to Boots the Chemist and outside it had a stand filled with small collapsable umbrellas. Fond of surveys, Margaret counted around 40 of them sold. She then bought one herself, feeling a bit left out of this growing trend.

Stopping along the way to stock up with an evening “meal”, we provisioned ourselves with sandwiches from the service station plus crisps, drinks and sweet things from the coach menu.

The hotel in Wavre was the same as on the way down. Nothing had changed; a small, clean, adequate room and a decent breakfast buffet.

The journey, next day, to Calais was straightforward and we arrived with plenty of time for Border Controls and a chance to stock up on duty-free booze.

The Channel was encased in fog and as calm as a millpond. The Club Lounge was as before. Good food and snacks, drinks on tap and calm, comfortable and quiet ambience.

We were fortunate that our feeder coach was our tour coach. No need to offload bags around our feet and on the overhead rack. We knew our couriers, Paul & Lisa, were well organised and as we guessed, we were the second coach to go.

However, a spectre from the outward feeder came to haunt us; the bag family were also on their way home. They had even more bags than before and a lot of shouting, screaming and minor violence amongst themselves before boarding was not the best look. Lisa calmed it down and they travelled like scolded lambs all the way to Newport.

We had a very easy route home; no tours of southern England and arrived in Cardiff 45 minutes ahead of schedule. If they hadn’t been digging up almost every road on which we travelled we’d have been another 30 minutes earlier.

Taxi waiting and straight home.

There’s no bed like your own bed!!!