I first drove my own car in a foreign country in 1974 when I took my Morris Minor on the ferry from Dublin to Liverpool and drove over to Durham. By the 1980s I had a company car and took it to France for Bank Holiday weekends and Switzerland to ski. I think the snow chains are still in the cellar, rusting.
Now Robert, Bertie and I are going to France in the little green car. Bertie doesn’t like long car journeys so we haven’t told him. Don’t spill the beans. This is what we are taking, just for the car:
1 x warning triangle
1 x hi-visibility vest
1 x first aid kit
1 x beam deflector
1 x GB sticker
1 x foil blanket
2 x NF breathalysers
1 x universal bulb kit
2 x driving licences (if Robert passes his test)
Insurance and vehicle registration docs
In the good old days I put yellow cellophane over the headlamps and, parp parp, we were off.
Last Friday I went to the Oriental Club for lunch. I was stripped of a cotton shopping bag, lest it contain business papers. In fact it had the John Masters book I’m reading and a bottle of eau de cologne bought earlier at Trumper’s. We repaired to one of the bars and sat beneath a painting of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore (1750–1799). If I might digress I visited the battlefield, Srirangapatna Fort, where he died in 1799. Young Arthur Wellesley took his scalp. The picture above depicts Tipu delivering his sons as hostages to Lord Cornwallis in 1793. Tipu paid the ransom and his sons were freed, no doubt all the better for a bit of British discipline.
Over lunch the chat ranged hither and thither, like an eager couple of pointers on a grouse moor, and the club rules did not prevent us talking about our investments. I said, rather confidently, that I have stopped investing in individual companies – only managed funds. Well that was Friday and today I will invest in a company. Tomorrow, if I remember, I will tell you what I’m selling, what I’m buying and why.
You probably won’t be interested, so I will tell you what we had for lunch: curries. The Oriental menu is divided into Western and Eastern. Western is OK but what’s not to like about curries and all the trimmings?
You need TWO hi-viz vests – one for every passenger and they need to be kept within reach ie in the car not in the boot.
If you intend to drive into any major French city you also need a CRIT AIR certificate displayed on your windscreen. This is an Air Quality Certificate issued by the Ministere de la Ecologique et Solidaire. It grades vehicles by their emissions. It costs about 4 euros and is not difficult to obtain before departure. You can google to see which cities require it. They are not numerous (Paris, Lyon etc) but more will follow.
Never heard of the foil blanket?
If your car number plate already includes a little GB then I believe an additional sticker is unnecessary.
And a third hi-viz vest for Bertie? I wonder if EU plates with GB will have to be changed if the UK ever leaves the EU? I envisage the regulations being strictly enforced in France post-Brexit. Plenty of on-the-spot fines to keep the gendarmes in Gamay, Graves, Gewurztraminer and Beaujolais, Barbara, Bordeaux.
A beagle gilet jaune or reflective collar might be useful for your trip to France. Aussie, Bertie must be taught to growl en Francais or bare his teeth at French Border Control if your experience be similar to ours on our annual trip to the Dordogne. Not to be discouraging, but at the beginning of June we were booked on an 11.50 am train on one of those days Monsieur Macron decreed every passport should be checked. Queues moved not at all. The train offered to us was to leave at 6.00 ish. I can read War and Peace, I thought. We managed to escape about 5.00 and were very lucky that our overnight hotel in Orleans was able to give us a code for their front door. We arrived at 11.45pm.Our return trip was better, but flying seems somewhat attractive next year. So, plenty of water and toys are essential for your journey as a bored beagle might not be to your liking in a confined space. Bonnes vacances.