Distance: 264 miles – Time: 0750 – 1330 – Temperature: 8 – 15ºC

The straight, clear road ahead into northern France

The excitement levels were stratospheric. Murray woke at 4.00, I snoozed on until 5.30. The weather was abysmally wet and windy in the early hours of the morning so we resisted getting up and setting off until after breakfast had appeared in the hotel restaurant at 7 a.m. The car was loaded and armed with maps and a fixed route plan to avoid all the road works on the Belgian auto-routes we set off just after 0730 in a direction I calculated would avoid most of the Luxembourg city commuter traffic. We had been warned about it the night before. It took us an hour and half to get out of Luxembourg – all of 24 km. Deeply frustrating – we should have sought local advice for the best route before setting off. With a lack of local road knowledge, heavy, heavy traffic and too much anticipation to get a move on we finally broke out and got into Belgium just after 9 a.m. Relief!

We had a very definite plan to drive the most direct route to the village of Loison sur Créquoise (where the family were waiting in the holiday house) in northern France, knowing some the roads from our previous travels from Le Touquet to the Trois Vallées in the French Alps. We knew the roads to be largely straight and usually pretty void of heavy traffic. The route from Arlon (Belgium) to Sedan (France) and on to Charleville Mézières was reasonable and without too much traffic and it was lovely to be in familiar countryside with rolling lush green farmland punctuated with woodland. However, from Charleville Mézières to Cambrai it became clear this was now a much used run for heavy haulage lorries on their way to the North Sea and Channel ports – our forth sea of the trip! – or to avoid the toll roads to take them north to Brussels.

Big French skies

One of the many cemeteries on the outskirts of Arras

We did not spare the proverbial horses. Murray drove like a demon, working as a team we overtook lorry after lorry until we got ahead of the bulk of the tranche of them. We scooted along on a short section of motorway to Arras, having been foiled by a rural ‘déviation’, all to the good. We then picked up the newly built dual carriageway from Arras to Le Touquet. The gods were on our side!

It is a moving route to take. The wide sweeping landscape is littered with cemeteries of the many war graves, all beautifully kept in ordered agricultural landscape. It never fails to make an impact.

Arriving in Loison after five and a half hours continuous driving we first saw little Union Jack flags decorating the flower baskets on the bridge over the river Créquoise. Slightly puzzled but not really taking them on board we were faced with large Union Jack with a picture of the Queen tethered to a hedge – this smacked of my father’s hand! – coursing up the lane to the house we found the hedges and drive strewn with Union Jack bunting and a wonderful ‘welcome back’ banner made by the children!

Finally! We arrived in Loison

We were filled with joy and love for our children and family, but we were keenly missing Zara. I can’t express just how happy and relieved we were to be with them. We had made it! Now it was time to pause and relax and enjoy a wonderful time together. Later we were thoroughly spoiled with a fabulous celebratory dinner of incredible sea food, roasted duck, Champagne and chocolate cake. What a welcome and a perfect way to end the day!!

In the last vestiges of our cleanest clothes!

Lindy and Pa outside the new summer house

Murray scrutinising the last page of his plan – we had made it!

Happy times with Max and Charlotte