The best laid plans...

Instead of being on the motorway approaching Calais, we are starting to prepare dinner.

NOT what we had planned!

I didn't realise that there was a fuel blockade on, and David didn't realise I'd used so much diesel...

And a change in plans for his train: bus replacement from Troyes, meant I went there to fetch him, and a good job too - we left the station at just before 10pm [having waited for the 'crowd' to vanish first], and the bus was still sitting there.

So obviously no way he would have done the half-hour journey and got to Vendeuvre by 9.59pm!

It did mean that we'd done an extra 70 miles or so in the car and the "red light" for fuel came on, and not realising there were strikes, I didn't spend a few minutes driving round to find a petrol station.

Oops!

Until the French government accept there's a problem, they aren't going to do anything about it, and their current line is that "there's plenty of fuel out there". Everyone we've spoken to tells us different, and the two towns we've tried haven't had any diesel at any of the service stations, so we're pretty sure the government is adopting the 'head-in-sand' position on this. The complete emptiness of the roads seems to back this up.

The longer it goes on, the worse it will be to put right, is our guess.

In the meantime, we're hoping for a speedy resolution and warning people that our plans to see them in England later this month may change.

As M. Baty was saying: strikes are the French speciality; at least SNCF didn't go on strike until after I'd fetched David, so once again we are lucky to be together at the house.

Off to warm my toes in front of the poêle, so it's not all bad!