To Brittany, on the ferry. Plymouth ferry terminal looks like a Students Union building circa 1986, and is just about as laid-back. The customs and passport check is carried out by a single woman behind a rickety table, and takes five minutes- so we have plenty of time to take advantage of the departure lounge facilities (a cafe bar, a jukebox, a stall with second hand Dick Francis novels, an overhead TV broadcasting 'The One Show'). This doesn't take very long so we spend the best part of two hours on the viewing balcony watching our nine-storey overnight transport- The Pont Aven- being prepared for voyage.
On board, Charlotte manfully tackles seaskickness head-on with the aid of a chocolate pudding, Frankie gets to have his photo taken with the Brittany Ferries mascot (a man dressed as a bear) and I delve briefly into the vast saloon bar to be entertained by a willing Glaswegian songstress belting out 'Hits from the 50s to the Noughties' to the accompaniment of a backing track. We all sleep on bunkbeds in a tiny cabin, and wake up- miraculously- in a completely different country.
The campsite is approximately 30 minutes away by car, but since we are attempting to instill in Frankie the devil-may-care daring of the intrepid traveller (and since we have no car, and are in any case terrified of the very idea of driving on the continent) we prefer to travel along the jagged coastline by coach and train. We've reckoned on this taking three hours, but thanks to a very slight and completely excusable misreading of the timetables on my part (the 11AM 29 bus from Morlaix to Lannion runs Thursday only- who knew?) it takes more like six, most of which is spent relaxing in France's extraordinarily clean, cheerful and economic train station cafes (three course lunch including caraffe of wine, 8 Euros).
Three coaches, one train, and just one bout of car-sickness from our intrepid eight-year-old later (he'll thank us for instilling in him a spirit of adventure- at least I think so...), we arrive. Our home for the week is a chalet, two minutes walk from the campsite 'village'. Frankie learns to swim without his armbands and also to make train announcements from underwater with the aid of a five Euro snorkel. Every night there is entertainment in the bar- a quiz, transmisson of the France versus Slovenia friendly match, and on Thursday night, a disco. Frankie has never been to a disco before, so can't understand why, even though the music has been belting out for upwards of three minutes, there's no-one yet on the dance-floor. 'When exactly is this thing going to get going?', he demands- and our supposedly shy boy can't be dissuaded from taking to the dancefloor alone, to offer the hundred or so present his virtuoso breakneck interpretation of Abba's 'Waterloo'. Charlotte captures a ten-second clip on the camera with which to embarrass him over tea and biscuits when his girlfriends come to visit in ten or so years' time.
There are also some more adventurous interludes, in which we remember we are intrepid travellers and venture 'off site'. The famous pink granite coastline is ten minutes' walk away, and one evening we walk along treacherous clifftops to a rather posh but semi-deserted resort (it's low season, so everything in Brittany is semi-deserted). Fog sets in, accompanied by torrential rain (this is why it is low season, the June weather in Brittany changes every six seconds) and there are no taxis as all the drivers (I imagine) are holed up in their living rooms watching France versus Slovenia on TF1 and aren't about to venture out to take a 3 Euro Fare to the Camping Le Ranolien. We imagine ourselves trapped overnight in the French equivalent of Morrissey's 'Sea Side Town They Forgot To Close Down'- but then the sun comes out and we set off back the way we came.
On daytimes we travel to markets, where we buy nothing but admire artichokes and arrays of olive oil - and to market cafes, where we buy large cafe au laits and fall into conversation with Brittany's neverending supply of weatherbeaten and presumably redundant fishermen. One red-faced fellow is at pains to warn me against buying any of the tourist paraphernalia adorned with the fetching black-and-white striped Breton flag- I don't understand all the details (my new friend is rather excitable, and is midway through what I don't think is his first large cognac of the afternoon) but I pick up that it's politically questionable, for reasons to do with the Second World War. I nod earnestly, but a day later purchase a gift-wrapped tin of possibly Fascist biscuits for my mother.
An idyllic week- but it has to come to an end, and on Saturday night- after a return journey involving three coaches, two trains, one ferry, one taxi, one hotel, two cross-city against-the clock hikes carrying all our baggage, and a long restorative lunch in Marks and Spencers, Plymouth- we arrive back home in Levenshulme. To a week involving not only a return to work but also a traumatic dental experience.
More of that next time, if I can bear to tell you (in short, it happened three days ago and I am still off work, which is why I am writing this and not in an office in the Westside doing whatever it is I am paid for- I've actually more or less forgotten). In the meantime: I would recommend ferry travel, and Brittany, and its pink granite coast, and its market cafes full of friendly and well-informed mid-afternoon drunks- to anyone and everyone. A la prochaine, tout le monde*
*until next time, everyone
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