A day (or two) that will live in infamy...

Where do I even start...

Today we drove to London. In theory, this should have been a 5 hour drive with little or no complications. Instead, it turned into a 10 hour ordeal where just about everything that could go wrong did - including my making an incredibly stupid mistake. The good news is that we are all well and safe and sound in London. We are just all exhausted.

We left Paris a bit late (Dave was kind enough to let me sleep an extra half hour), but had barely got onto the ring road (peripherique) before we got completely stuck in solid traffic because of an accident just after a construction zone. We hardly went anywhere for an hour... during which time poor Samuel was miserably hot and uncomfortable in his car seat and screamed non-stop. By the time we made it onto the main highway north of Paris, Samuel had exhausted himself and gone to sleep. We drove for another hour or so until he woke up and started to scream again, so we had to pull over to cool and calm him down. We then had to fill up the car with gas...... which is where the day really went wrong. In a moment of unbelievable stupidity I filled the tank with petrol... only to discover afterwards the large label saying 'DIESEL' on the inside of the gap flap.

AAAAARGH.

I will not be competing for 'Brain of Britain' anytime soon.

45 minutes later the towing truck showed up to take us to a garage where they drained the tank so we could fill it with diesel and get back on the road. At this point we were already over 4 hours behind schedule and had completely missed our booked crossing on the channel tunnel - and they say they will only honour the booking for 2 hours after your scheduled time. When we finally got to the check in station, I told the lady about our nightmare experiences and she let us on the next available crossing without any problem.

Of course, by this point, Samuel was understandably completely sick and tired of his car seat and making his feelings known quite loudly again. He did enjoy the train crossing - if only because he was able to be free from it and be held by us. After another couple of hours of driving the other side, we made it to London. Phew. We've now all had a good meal, and Samuel has had a bath and is happily fast asleep in his pack & play.

All this on top of the previous day, where we first spent 3 hours at an electronics store spending Samuel's college fund on all the electrical appliances we will need for our apartment (oven, fridge, freezer, TV, washer, dryer, phones, etc.) and then I spent another 4 hours dealing with more wonders of French bureaucracy to get our telephone/TV/internet connection set up and a French mobile phone, while Samuel stayed home in the cool ... but had terrible gas, and so was miserable - which made things tough for Dave.

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get anything done in less than two hours in France. A meal? At least 2 hours. A basic communication setup? A good 2 hours. Trying to get a driver's license? Getting on for 2 hours in total, and that was just the first visit. Be prepared to have all kinds of bizarre documentation and an endless fount of patience to hand...

I am sure Dave will add his thoughts later... but for now it is time for bed.

- Julia (a.k.a. 'Diesel'... though 'dim-wit' would work just as well)