On my way ...

... from the lorry park to the Motorway Service Area where I spent Monday night, I found myself going round the Schuman roundabout and I was struck by how beautiful the Rue de la Loi looked with its new streetlights. So much so that I spent about half an hour there taking different photos.

And it's a good job that I did because I intercepted a Danish car, heading the wrong way down the street. Looking for a hotel, they weren't looking at the one-way signs. Anyway I packed them off to the Marriott and I went on my way.

Next mornig saw me in IKEA where they had sold out of everything interesting and so I went to Marianne's. After lunch I took a pile of stuff down to the Charity Shops and then we went to Brico to buy a pile of cable to rewire all of her internet connections.

At 19:20 precisely I left Brussels, maybe for the last time as I now have no reason to be back there, and headed off home. And I was glad to leave, I can tell you. Charity shops refusing goods, and refusing them with a sneer and an offensive remark, large vans deliberately turning into your path when they can see you coming, and the final straw was the brand-new Range Rover that tried to run me down on a zebra crossing. Yes, by that time I had really had enough and now I'm wondering how that Range Rover driver will be explaining the large size 9-sized dent in his rear wing. Yes, I was in a bad mood when I left.


The journey home was exciting. The sat-nav predicted that I would arrive home at 03:51, and I was home at ... errr .... 03:50 precisely.

And that was quite a surprise, and for several reasons. Firstly, the thing took me down a completely different route - the Mons by-pass, then the N2 via Soissons to the Francilienne, and then round via Melun, Fontainebleu and the RN7. It also wanted to send me via Nevers and Moulins but I took the short cut via Bourges.

Secondly, I made a few unscheduled stops along the way. One of the stops was this absolutely gorgeous thing that I saw - and it's been absolutely ages since I've featured any nice and interesting vehicles in my postings. This is an original Panhard-Levassor and I think that it might be a CS model from the early 1930s. But whatever it is, it is beautiful - it really is.

Another unscheduled stop was at Melun where at the ELF garage there - the cheapest in France, diesel was at 129.9. That called for a major fuel-up.

The third hold-up was road works. The way out of Brussels was full of them, as was the Francilienne. I calculated that I lost about 15 minutes at least in that lot. And there were also road works on the roads between Gien and Bourges and that slowed me down quite a lot as well.

But apart from that, I dodn't stop at all - not even for food or coffee (luckily at Marianne's I had made a big mug of coffee in my thermal mug). I was in a hurry to return home.

Back here at home I was awake at 09:30 but even though I heaved myself out of the stinking pit I took it easy and watched a couple of films. I did however rearrange my room a little this afternoon. Ages ago Liz and Terry gave me a canvas-covered wardrobe and I've erected it now and put all my clothes in it. It meant a few changes up here but it'll be much better when it's all finished.

And now I'm off to bed in a minute. I'll be having another leisurely day tomorrow as well.