Road Trip

My daughter and I are off on a trip to drive almost the length of France.  I feel like Thelma and Louise but, hopefully, without the attempted rape,  robbery, violence and suicide.

It’s roughly a 10 hour drive (shown on the map with a thick red line), so we decided to make a mini holiday out of it and stop over for a night in each direction.  So, on the way up we’re stopping in Cognac – of cognac brandy fame and, on the way back, we’re stopping in La Rochelle, which is on the coast and has an old fishing port and fabulous market to visit.

(For my Stateside readers, for scale, France is apparently about 80% the size of Texas, so this probably seems like popping to the corner shop for you.)

We are actually going to a fancy dress party on the Sunday night but will leave home on Thursday morning and return Tuesday night in order to make a mini holiday out of it.

The most bizarre thing is that I have never met the hostess of the party before.  She and I are ‘friends’ in cyber space – although we have also spoken quite a few times on the phone.  So – driving for 10 hours to see somebody I’ve never met before seems a bit weird when I really think about it but it is a ‘milestone’ birthday and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

 I never understood internet dating before but I suppose I now see that, if you hit it off with somebody online, it’s easy to believe that you will get on in real life.  Although of course, the sexual chemistry factor comes into it with dating which must be harder to gauge without a face to face meeting.  I must ask my sister and my sister-in-law, who both met their current partners online – although they can spare me the intimate details!

Anyway, I’ll let you know how we get on and, also, will attempt to get decent photos of us in costume.  I can’t say what I’m wearing yet in case the hostess pays a rare visit to my blog (yes, bit of a dig there) and it’s supposed to be a surprise.  My daughter will probably look gorgeous and I might look O.K. but I shall attempt, as usual, to appear from the neck down only.