I'm about to drive across France. This fact is causing me a fair amount of worry even though I've done the trip from Calais to Frejus in the south many, many times. In fact the last time was only just over a month ago. So why am I fretting?
This is why, all those other trips were with another adult. This time it'll be just me and my two boys, the 17-year-old and 11-year-old. They're not the problem. The problem is I have no sense of direction. Literally. I was born without a directional gene in my body and, in a few days, I'm about to try to navigate my way from the Channel Tunnel, 800 odd miles across France and hope I end up on the southern French coast rather than in Switzerland.
The odds aren't good. Only a few weeks ago I went to the loo in Cafe Rouge in Bath which is downstairs. All I had to do was go through two doors but in the time I was in there, all of a couple of minutes, I managed to come out of the ladies and find myself looking at two doors. Naturally I headed for the one which wasn't the exit but a storage cupboard. See why I'm worried?
Then there was the time I was at the wheel on another trip across France and all my passengers had dosed off. Coming up to traffic lights in Reims I had the choice of turning right or going straight on. I went straight on and found myself driving the wrong way down a one way street in the centre of Reims at rush hour.
I've gone the wrong way around Eton Square in London, I've got lost trying to find Oldbury nuclear power station (losing one of these is hard as they are BIG and kind of dominate the skyline), I've had a major panic attack that my car had been stolen in Oxford only to discover I'd taken a park and ride bus back to a completely different car park on the other side of the city from where I'd left it. My family and friends are used to me walking out of a shop and having physically to guide me in the right direction.
It's a family thing. Years ago my lovely aunt, who lives in the States, gave me directions on how to get from her then home in Baton Rouge to the French Quarter in New Orleans. She was quite clear that I had to 'go over the bridge' which I did and ended up in an area that, not to put too fine a point on it, made locking all the car doors and getting the hell out of there fast the most sensible course of action. 'You went over the bridge?' she shrieked, when I returned hours later safe but somewhat nervy. See, it's a family failing.
What doesn't help are all those 'reassuring' comments - 'you've done it so many times, you must know it like the back of your hand' and 'you'll be fine, you just come out of the tunnel, get on the autoroute and keep going'.
Yes, I keep telling myself, it's a pretty straightforward journey.....and then I remember Lyon. Lyon, the city where the autoroutes meet, where you either head south or off to Germany and Switzerland. I really don't want to go to Germany or Switzerland, lovely though they may be.
I'm taking a crash course in how to use the built in sat nav because that's another issue, I'm crap with technology. How ironic is that, the car has a machine that's made to save me from getting lost and I can't work out how to operate it!
So if anyone happens to be on the autoroute du soleil early next week and spots a harassed looking woman with two exasperated boys clearly heading to Germany, that'll be me.
Happy holidays!
