Sunday 17th - The First Day

Aguet and I collected Nat from Fareham, where she'd found a driveway courtesy of my Grandmother in which to park her car for the duration, in the dead of night last night. She was pretty spaced from her busy day and long drive that she almost left her sleeping bag and half her clothes in her car. We set off back to my mother's place for a nice, healthy, five hours of restless sleep before being required to get up and go to catch our ferry. Once there, I was almost arrested for trying to declare a kind of pen knife, allegedly illegal in the UK (available from all good camping and tackle shops for the low price of £10). We boarded the ferry, said farewell to Britain and said hello to a horrid retail manager, eager to show her hatred of all LCD hitchers, of whom she'd obviously seen too many this month.

Once in France, we discovered that no lorries were permitted on the roads on Sundays, so long haul lifts were less likely. Never the less, we've managed to cover good ground, hitching five rides today. The first, Vincent, didn't understand at all what we were doing and dropped us where he thought we wanted to go, the train station in Caen. The second, Emmanuel, was a man whose wife saw us and dragged him out of his house to take us to the nearest helpful motorway. Phillipe, the third lift, took us most of the way to Rennes on his way home, before we were picked up at the service station by the legendary Yvon. He was our longest lift, taking us well out of his way and knowing no English, he found our attempts at French hilarious. We felt we had to buy him dinner at the service station he dropped us on the way to Nantes, but he only accepted a coffee. Our final lift of the day, another Phillipe, drove us from the station to Nantes, where we are now. We've set up a campsite in a scenic dog walking area, ignorant of whether or not we're allowed. It all begins again tomorrow.

On another note; Aguet, Nat and I are getting on well, but I'm far too tired to continue writing.