Sixty Gallons of Diesel

[v70torslanda]

. . . in a fortnight.

Well. Nearer 62 to be exact. We've just got back from our annual expedition to France, via Anglesey.

As usual my life continued in its vein of 'one long ££££ up!' and our holiday began with a four and a half hour sprint from Manchester to the Channel Tunnel. Setting off at half eight on Friday night with a departure time of 02.35 was never going to be a comforatble run. We made our check in at Folkestone to be told 'You might be on time but your shuttle is delayed by 2 hours!' Dead pleased with that - NOT!

Hitting the French motorway system at 04.30 or so we turned South, got a Peage ticket, turned the wick up to 140kph and set the cruise control. Ripped to the tits on Red Bull and Pro Plus (again! ) and with the sat nav squeeking out directions in a very strange (French?) pronunciation - Think 'Allo! Allo!' and you will understand the hilarity as we bombed it towards Paris.

Paris . . . Ah! La Periferique. What a piece of ££££e! K***heads changing lanes with 20yds to go to their exit, no signposts, scooters, hairpin exits at 100k and we're into urban Paris. Never seen it in daylight before and realised that nobody's missing anything! Dump!

Destination Limoges. Lucky we knew the way there as programming the address and area code into the Garmin gave it a brain haemmorage and if we'd followed its directions we would have missed by over 70 miles - more of this later. . .

A relaxing week staying with friends and we were off on our travels again. Leaving Limoges at 18.30 (we always travel at night, the roads are quieter and the children sleep thru' - usually) we bombed it North for a return Tunnel at 03:00. Just shy of 500 mile in 8 hours? No drama. I know, we'll stop for something to eat. Treat the kids, Maccy D's in Chateauroux, 250k South of Paris. This was where my mind wandered. As some of you know the clocks on the V70 are playing up and because of this I hadn't reset them to French time. I wasn't wearing my watch and we blithely set off at a leisurely pace when it dawned on us that the Garmin was giving us an ETA of an hour after our train left. Oh sh*t!

Time for the old girl to hitch up the skirts and give it legs. Come on sat nav, don't fail me now ... Guess what the bleedin thing did? Only took us thru' the centre of bloody Paris! 50kph up the left bank of the bloody Seine! Traffic lights every 150 yards! Finally we hit the A16 with 2 hours to get to Calais.

We did it, don't ask me how but we did it. Thank you to the traffic Gods who kept the Gendarmes tucked up in bobos and apologies to all those Brits who saw a dark blue D5 going past them like a bat out of hell. Apologies also to the French bloke in an Audi R8 - Yes! I really did want to go that fast!

Made the tunnel and drove from Folkestone to Holyhead in one hit. Not the best idea, I'm getting too old for this and by the time we reached Betws-Y-Coed my mind was registering mistakes but doing nothing to correct them. Fell into bed at about 09:00 but was on the beach after lunch.

No mechanical issues except I think we need a B4 solenoid repair and 2498 miles at an average mpg of 40.5. Overall average speed was 44mph for the whole fortnight. I LOVE THIS CAR.

Apologies for a long and rambling post.

luv'n'stuff

John

[dave stew]

Excellent stuff! You have to start thinking that holidays are to relax, John! Good write up, you can feel the panic and hear the wifey bollocking on the final stretch!

[v70torslanda]

Excellent stuff! You have to start thinking that holidays are to relax, John! Good write up, you can feel the panic and hear the wifey bollocking on the final stretch!

What? You were in the car . . . ?

[Liddo]

Well done that man I bet you were WELL peed off on getting to the port to find the french crossing delayed, after all that! They should let people know so that they can take their time

And, as for Paris, ive been once, and once is enough! and yes, it IS a s**thole

Getting 40mpg after battering it and being fully laiden is good going id say