Tuesday 14 April: Dijon, France
The final day of the holiday begins with desperately poor attempts
to flee our rooms before the cleaning staff arrive, so we look
sheepish as they look on at us getting our collective shit together,
and we quickly depart to spend a slapdash hour in Dijon. We get
to munch on crepes for an extremely pleasant brunch and manage
a quick glance at the town hall before time dictates that we depart
for the outlying villages, at which we intend to sample and purchase
some good wine. This is Simmo's opus, and he looks suitably chuffed
as we quaff copious amounts of plonk in the name of trying to find "something
we like" (virtually all are fantastic, and five billion times
better than the shit we normally indulge in back home).
By the time we realise that we've spent far too long indulging
in alcohol and trying to pull down Ian's trousers to make him look
more Emo, everyone is looking a little shakier on their feet. No
matter, for we have a seven-hour journey in front of us, which
means that everyone in the back can continue drinking exploits/get
some final amount of rest/finish books/argue over what we're going
to listen to for the final stretch of our tour.
The fact that we arrive in Calais at the allotted hour with any
bottles left for loved ones leaves me surprised, and then rueing
not downing them myself, for Calais truly is a shithole that is
only really visible by night. Our moods take a collective nosedive
at this atrocious sight/smell, plus we realise that the bliss/mayhem
of the week is finally at an end. A little before midnight we board
our ferry, and spend the journey drinking watered down and overpriced
lager in an attempt to condition ourselves to domestic habits once
again. We also talk excitedly about coming back at the first opportunity,
and of touring an album that we will one day get around to releasing
in our birth country.
Then it is back into the comfortable confines of Doris for a final
stretch of a mere couple of hundred miles to our various homes
and chosen beds. Most of us spend it asleep, but I am in the front
with eyes wide open, thinking of all we have experienced in the
last week. It has been an absolute blast, blessed in many places,
and hampered little by any kind of problems at all. We have met
several fantastic people that have already become good friends,
and have been warmly welcomed and treated like kings wherever we
have gone.
We have, in short, been incredibly lucky to be able to do such
things, and are all incredibly grateful. We drop people off, and
reach our beds by something like 4am. Now all I, Stu and Jim have
to do is get up at 6.30am to return Doris. But we will still in
some kind of deliriously happy stupor when we arise. Unsurprisingly,
this soon fades to a numbed depression at going back to normal
domestic life that stays with each of us for a good few days.
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