However, despite being discombobulated by jet-lag we managed to tidy the garden, buy bedding plants and sort the borders and planters, drop-off my bike at a repair shop in Derby and pick it up four days later, drive the van to Leek to fill-up with GPL, then wash and tidy it, top up the oil and check the tyres, before setting off for Newhaven a day earlier than planned because DFDS demanded we check-in two hours before departure to cope with the new enhanced border checks.
Phew! Now, three days and 740 miles later, parked for the night in a free stellplatz beneath the ancient walls of Kirchberg an Der Jagst, a small village on the border between Baden Württemberg and Bavaria we concluded that all of this was only possible because we are amazing!
In truth I don't feel amazing, Japanese cuisine upset my digestion system and the stress of jetlag followed by rushing about has triggered a clutch of long COVID related post viral symptoms, but I am confident that when we do manage to slow down I will feel much better.
So, a quick recap. Once we had decided that it would be wise to have an overnight stop between Buxton and Newhaven we needed to find a convenient location somewhere in the Midlands close to MI. I have wasted too many words on the blog fulminating about the bungaloid nature of campsites in England, especially those operated by the Caravan and Motorhome Club. However as well as their somewhat ghastly, over-managed club sites the organisation hosts a network of small informal CL farm based sites in more rural locations. They are more to our taste. We would use them more regularly, however most of them are remote, located down single track roads more suited to quad bikes than motorhomes so we tend to avoid them.
The Home Farm CL in Northamptonshire seemed more conveniently situated than most, not far off the MI, a couple of miles down a minor road off the A43 next to the Grand Union canal. The whole experience was a throwback to more simple times, open the gate, park up in a lovely field dotted with trees, put £15 in cash into an honesty box and drive off next morning. The facilities were rudimentary but adequate, all good.
Two things made the experience especially memorable. Firstly the location next to the Grand Union canal with a series of locks and a tunnel near Stoke Bruerne is a celebrated example of nineteenth century canal engineering, a magnet for narrow boat owners and 'gongoozlers' alike.
Secondly people were really friendly, both the locals and the canal boat owners. We had a good chat while assisting a woman operating the lock gates while her partner edged their narrow boat through the lock.
Next we swapped gardening anecdotes with a local weeding the flower bed in front of her garden. Then we had a rambling, but interesting conversation about this that and the other with a man who lived on a narrow boat in the summer and in his house in Florida during the rest of the year. He had dual citizenship but was planning to sell-up in the US and move back to the UK or somewhere in Europe because Trump's America was becoming intolerable.
In an hour's stroll down a toll path in Northamptonshire we enjoyed more social interaction than we have had at home in the past year. I tend to put this down introversion, but maybe it's not me, perhaps people in the town we live in are stand-offish. I certainly think the notion that northerners are more inherently friendly than in other areas of England is a myth. Bow in east London always felt unexpectedly welcoming, despite being overrun by tourists. Cornwall comes over as a friendly place, as are the towns and villages along the Suffolk coast that we have visited. Now we can add Northamptonshire to the list.
It was good that we decided to split the journey to Newhaven over two days, because progress on the M25 around Heathrow was even slower than usual. We arrived at the port a few minutes shy of the required check-in time two hours before departure. There were a couple of dozen other vehicles lined-up and the gates were closed. I don't think people take much notice of the guidelines, including the DFDS staff.
The crossing takes four hours, 20 minutes of it taken up by a complicated manoeuvre involving ropes and winches to turn the ferry around in Newhaven's narrow harbour. Departure is overseen by a pilot whose exit from a door in the side of the ferry onto a small launch bobbing about on the choppy waves beyond the the breakwater leaves you speculating that some people choose very peculiar careers.
Once the spectacular procession of white cliffs that end at Beachy Head fade into the distance the longish crossing becomes tedious. Furthermore, the late afternoon departure time means you have little option but to eat on board. We've travelled on many ferry routes and without a doubt in recent years DFDS has consistently served the worst food. This time they excelled themselves. We decided to avoid the cooked meals because they looked alarming, instead we opted for a quiche, it looked suitably flannish but tasted unpleasant with a rubbery mouth feel. We had to sort through the cutlery to find clean knives and forks that were - the whole catering operation is very poor.
Disembarkation was disorganised too, though this was not the fault of DFDS but the result of French passport control's total complete disinterest in adapting to circumstance. We wondered if there was a mandatory 'jobs-worth' development programme for all employees of the French state.
At Newhaven we could not help but notice a big group of cyclists queuing to get on board. This is quite common, a cycle route called the Avenue Vert connects London and Paris via the Newhaven to Dieppe crossing. There were between thirty or forty of them, unmistakable on the boat by their varied but equally snazzy skintight shorts. Three booths were working at passport control, two for cars, One for trucks, the latter cleared in a matter of minutes because there were far fewer trucks than cars. The car queues took forever because the three dozen cyclists were scattered amongst them. Of course an immigration officer could have redirected the cyclists to the now under utilised truck booth and speed things up. However being helpful or innovative is an anathema to any employee of the French state, doubly so if it is going to assist a foreigner. So it took well over an hour after our arrival before we were parked in the aire at Dieppe docks, close enough to the ferry so we lulled to sleep by the low rhythmic throb of its idling engines.
We aimed to get to Pilsen in the Czech Republic with only three overnight stops. This meant sticking to the motorways - an expensive option in France - and using aires and stellplatz as overnight stops - two in France and one in Germany.
When you are in a hurry the French Campingcar Park chain is great because you can pre-book your space on its app. We've used the one at Ciry-Salonge before, it's well placed on the road to Reims, useful if you are heading east towards Germany or south towards Switzerland and Italy.
Like many of the rurally located Campingcar Parks the one at Ciry-Salonge looks as if it was a former Camping Municipal. It's a pretty spot in a wooded meadow next to a plan d'eau.
Most of the time the app works well, this time the barrier refused to budge when we tried to leave next morning. A quick call to the helpline fixed the problem, the staff speak English and we were soon on our way. It's the third time this has happened, perhaps we've used Campingcar Parks a couple of dozen times - that's a 12.5% failure rate, maybe we've just been unlucky, but that's way too high for an on- line service. You'd be very pissed-off if your contactless bankcard failed 1 in 8 times.
My daily grump over it was an uneventful steady drive long the A4 autoroute from Reims to Metz. Tedious but poignant, the motorway shadows the killing fields of WW1, from the Somme in the west to the Verdun in the east. The landscape changes from featureless plains to undulating forested hills. It's chilling to think that thousands of young men might have have perished attempting to capture any one of these innocuous wooded ridges.
We overnighted in another Campingcar Park a few kilometres shy of the German border at Homburg Haut. The aire was next to a lovely forest with woodland walks.
Sadly the shadow of war darkens Homburg Haut too. The Lorraine American Cemetery, situated between here and St. Avold is the largest site commemorating the US army's losses in WW2. Our journey from England to the Czech Republic take us across territories torn by conflict and division for much of the twentieth century. In essence the European Union is an optimistic, progressive project, whatever its perceived shortcomings the alternative is riskier. A heavy price was paid by our grandparents and parents to create a peaceful, prosperous Europe, yet we seem to be increasingly tempted to dismantle institutions established in the mid-twentieth century to keep the peace.
Our original plan was to make two stops in Germany, but when I calculated the distance between Homburg Haut and Pilsen - 380 miles, we decided to one break would be enough, it was autobahn the whole way, trundling along at 90kph in the right lane with the trucks.
We found a free stellplatz near the halfway point. Kirchberg am der Jagst is an attractive small town with an ancient castle on a cliff overlooking the river Jagst, as the name implies. The stellplatz is in a public car park halfway in-between - basic, but serviceable.
We opted to walk down to the river and admire the old bridge rather than tackle the steep climb up to the castle. Maybe we will give it a go if we come back this way we agreed somewhat halfheartedly.
Next morning, before rejoining the autobahn, we stopped at the Rewe supermarket on the edge of town. We like them, they're a bit more up-market than the ubiquitous Aldis and Lidls, like Waitrose at home or Mercadona in Spain.
As well as buying a few essentials we chose a couple of interesting looking local white wines. Fifty years ago German and Austrian wine was popular in the UK, now you don't see it so much.
Tastes have changed from the 1970s love of luscious flowery whites, flinty chardonnays or robust verdejos are the thing now. Maybe we need to buck the trend.
Later today - Czechia - a new country for us, our first since we visited Ireland in 2022. This represents serious mission drift from our avowed intent to visit new places.