Published at 19:29, Thursday, 20 August 2009

BY THE time you read this we will be somewhere in the Deep South; not America, of course, but our own England, en route to the Channel port of Portsmouth.

A ridiculous departure time (thanks to my romantic notions of driving off the ro-ro into a French sunrise) means we’ll have hours to kill in strange southern towns, eating fish ‘n’ chips in a steamy, packed car.

We can only hope that as we journey ever southwards the weather might improve, though I’m not totally convinced as the weather forecast for Brittany looked even worse than here: colder, just as wet, and with the added bonus of fog.

We’re thoroughly sick of hearing about the ‘barbecue summer’ and the new-fangled vocabulary ‘staycation’, but we have to admit it’s been awful these last few weeks.

And while we really feel sorry for the PM and his family and all the other kagoule-wearing visitors to our region, we’re still packing our waterproofs just in case.

Still, it’s the flavour of a different country that makes it a holiday, albeit a short one. The language, the sights, the smells, the sounds; the tastes in particular!

I love typically English food but the ‘du pain, du vin, du Boursin’ aspect of our week away is going to make a nice, albeit brief, change.

I’m looking forward to croissants, cheeses, wines, fish and seafood, wandering among the market stalls buying for suppers to make at the gite (the French cook books are already packed).

I’m not, however, going to go as far as frogs’ legs.

Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk