Yesterday, I came across some old (20 years old) photo scans. I'm still hoping that the originals might turn up somewhere, but at least I have this much... It really did make my day because I was afraid I only had memories to recall this time of my life.

In 2000, my (then) husband had received a nice bonus for working overtime combating the Y2K "bug" (the fact that most computers had not been designed to handle dates beginning with 20.. instead of 19..) He decided to rewire the house with CAT V networking cable everywhere to be able to better handle his computing needs. (He still works at IBM, so he definitely had the needs.)

With three young children in the house (only around 700 square feet), it was decided that the best thing to do was to send us (along with a church friend) to France for a week! I did the logistics work, reserving passage on a ferry to Cherbourg, France, a minivan to drive to a gîte in Brittany, where we would stay for a week and see a bit of Brittany as we did.

In Portsmouth, three children, an "au pair" of sorts, and I boarded something like this...

I didn't know at the time that this "fast cat" has another nickname... the Vomit Comet!
Sure, it makes the voyage in 3 hours, but that comes at a price - especially when traveling with young children who have never been on a boat before!

Then, the seats where I could keep the boys' (then 3, 2 and 6 months) mess somewhat contained were situated without good windows, so it wasn't long before we had a bigger mess...

We finally got to the other side of the channel. Customs was a dawdle, and didn't require any French - which was good because my French was minimal.

The next step was picking up the minivan I was renting - the biggest vehicle I'd ever driven. I watched the man using his French keyboard and I realized I was going to have to sign a contract that I could not read! That was kind of scary, but that part went off without a hitch.

After that, having already spotted the "golden arches" across the way, I made what was probably the biggest mistake of the entire trip - though I didn't know then how badly I was affected by soy. However, with my limited French, it was really nice to know before I went in there what was going to be on the menu. I could go in and ask for:

Deux Happy Meals avec Chicken McNuggets.

Then, was the drive that was meant to take less than 4 hours...

The problem began when I missed a turn somewhere. (My brain is pretty much "fried" for about a week after I've ingested soy. But I didn't know that then. There was probably plenty of soy in that golden arches meal.)

So, we finally got to Guingamp at around 1am.

• Unfortunately, the communication about our place to stay hadn't quite got to the people who held the keys at a local pub.
• Fortunately, they spoke good English.
• Unfortunately, I had a scolding first. "What are you doing with three babies in the middle of France in the middle of the night?!" (or something to that effect. It's been 20 years, after all!)
• Fortunately, they started us with keys, directions and a small selection of tokens to run the heater in the gîte. We were soon installed in the large house.

Here's a picture of the gîte. It is of poor quality because they were scans from 20 years ago, reduced in size for using on my website, then enlarged again. But at least I have this much.

Photo of the gîte taken in 2000 with an old Olympus - or maybe it was my Ricoh... not sure now.
Ferry picture from Wikipedia user: geni. (I edited it on Photoscape for clarity.)
Map from Google.
Crossposted at Uptrennd.

Past issues...

Preschool to Second Grade - Svensen, Oregon (1976-1981)

Svensen Trailer Court , The Best Place for a Child to Grow , The Forming of a Farmer , The Great-Horned Owl , The Forming of a Homesteader , Forty Years Ago : May 18, 1980 ,

Waking Up - Southampton, England (1998-2003)

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble, TeePublic, PicFair and DeviantArt.)
verified author on Goodreads
(Buy my books at Books2Read and at LBRY)
find me on Twitter

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