As you may or may not remember, Humphrey is a humble Saab, my workhorse and daily transportation. He is third in line of Saabs I have owned, and due to the demise of the marque, the last I shall own. A sturdy, diesel estate with good load space and a few seemingly minor but nonetheless to me important characteristics.
He has chiropractor-designed seats and this was the most critical item in the decision to buy a Saab for the third time – no other seat I sat in made the grade for long journeys. He has the best load space available for a conventional low bodied estate at the time of selection, together with a hard, folding parcel shelf which can take some weight as opposed to the flimsy roller blind affair sported by most other estates. He also has a 2 sun visors on each side so you can position one at the side window and the other in the windscreen – inspired! And the tiniest detail, a plastic clip on the windscreen to hold car park tickets and thus avoiding sticky residue.
On the minus side there is only one, if beautifully engineered, cup holder in the front. Does no-one love Saab owners? Someone loves this one and needs a cup holder too…… This is a favourite mini-rant, you may have guessed.
So, we recently filled about two thirds of the available load space with stuff for our exhibit at a trade show in Geneva – the other third could have been filled but was purposely reserved for potential purchases, mainly of the products of viticulture or hop growing.
Of course we could have fitted a lot more of both in Horatio, but there were some logistical issues we were unable to overcome this time – due to a change in the halls used for the show, we could not leave him in the same place as we did last year, and no viable alternative presented itself, so Humphrey, having been abandoned last year in the barn, got back his mojo as a result!
We set off a full week before the exhibition was due to start, owing to the need to visit some clients in the Basel area beforehand. Things started shakily. A big delay on the M3 (good grief, we hadn’t even made it to the ill-fated M25 at that point) meant we had to contemplate missing our crossing on a non-changeable fare. We spent some time discussing travelling to Dover the night before next time….as you do…then, miraculously, we made it. No last minute full up of fuel this time mind you.
Lunch on the ferry was welcome and turned out to be the last time I observed any semblance of healthy eating on the trip. Well, who was I trying to fool? Myself of course.
We arrived about 5ish at the first hotel I had selected on the internet – at a champagne makers near Reims. Great idea! Actually no. We were too late for any tours, and there was no restaurant on site. Seems I didn’t check the details that well then. The suggestion was to drive into Reims centre – we thought not – or a pizza place in the next village. Oh well, at least its small roads for B after a glass or two of what he shouldn’t have but really needed at that point.
As it happened, we each had a portion of fabulous homemade lasagne and one of the best bottles of wine of the trip with the lowest dinner bill of the trip. Result!
By the way, did you know that the French pronounce Reims more like “ranse” with the n/m almost silent. B does now, and ranted (ransed) about it several times during the trip….
Moving on. Which we did the next morning. At the first coffee stop I called one of my clients for the next day and managed to move the meeting forward to that afternoon as we were due to arrive early enough. Good move.
When we got to the area I tried to navigate us into the correct French area of the airport complex based on going there last year. Bad move.
It didn’t go well. After half an hour we did what we should have done in the first place and went to the hotel. The directions from there were simple, but did involve a code for a barrier. It worked.
Meeting went well and then we went back to the hotel to check in and wait for one of my bosses to arrive. He didn’t. Eventually he called to say he would be in late having eaten on a train and would see us at breakfast. Just as well, we had consumed several beers/wines by then. The menu in the bar was ok but extortionate (this hotel is in Switzerland by the way). I checked the restaurant, amazingly it was cheaper. We used that. Turns out it was cheaper not because its next to the Casino (our theory), but because the portions were miniscule. Just as well we had eaten all the peanuts and breadsticks the bar had delivered with our drinks in a misguided effort to stay sober!
The following day was all meetings and it really was just as well I had seen the other client the day before. We finally left at 4pm, heading off for the next hotel booking error – a three and a half hour drive to a B&B in the Jura mountains which involved driving an hour past the exhibition location. I hate backtracking. B decided that after this trip I was to purchase a new France map book so the old one was available (not in Horatio in the barn) for better planning.
We got there around 8pm, tired and hungry and couldn’t find the place. 20 minutes later we were back at where the satnag had indicated and spotted a tiny sign….Again it was a drive to the nearest restaurant, this time the best steak we had on the trip and a pichet of acceptable red. The owner organises classic car rallies in nearby Nantua, a lovely spot on a lake which we have previously visited. We spent a few minutes showing pix of Henry and The Beast.
Then back through the impossibly narrow entrance (about 2 inches to spare off each wing mirror) and the bed with a bolster. The house was huge but not what you would call picturesque, nice garden but we didn’t get the weather to use it. Lovely couple, but the village must have been the only truly ugly one we found the whole time we were in the area.
I decided that another time I would not book anything in advance we should wing it. Did I really say that???!!!