Bonjour Liverpool

After 2 days of travelling, 720 miles door to door, Lucy and I arrived back in Liverpool.  I feel like I have completed a rite of passage, some kind of initiation.  I feel so great at having done this and need to remember always that it was a great achievement.  The stages from visiting the Vet for Lucy's flea/tick preparation, Pet Passport stamped, to setting off to a teary farewell from Champagne-le-Sec, and stopping along the way at various aire de repose (rest area), walking Lucy, buying coffee, eating my preprepared sarnies.  It was just all go, go, go.  We stopped about 4 times before we got to Calais, and it gave us both time to stretch our legs, have a wee and basically not drive.  Lucy was an absolute angel.  I could not have wished for a more calm passenger.  No hassle from her whatsoever.  The only time she got a bit excited was as we neared Calais and she could smell the sea.  She's a real sea dog and loves being in water.  So she suddenly woke up and was panting, looking out the window.  Cute really.  
Once in Calais, we found the hotel really easily - Formula 1 - not sure if any peeps have stayed here, but I won't be staying again.  The room was fine, the pillows were nice and only €32 euros for me and €3 for Lucy, very good price, but no toilet or shower in the room.  Little did I know that this is the 'concept' of F1 hotels and I didn't notice on booking it.   They have 3 or 4 showers and 2 toilets per 8 rooms.  Now, I'm not saying I'm a snob, far from it, but when a coach party descends with masses of young people, I was lucky to just nip in and use them.  Not ideal and won't be doing that again.  Lucky for us there was Sky, so I was able to watch the Dorothy results show and also a little bit of Worried about the Boy but soon fell asleep.  We both did.  We were bushed.  
Pet passport check-in was a doddle and really pleased with that (defo do that again), so was booking into Euro tunnel, but there was a half hour delay - but all in all very smooth just waiting in the car - drive on, wait for 35 mins and then disembark.  Welcome to Folkestone.  We had to go straight to get the car MOT'd in Ashford (it passed thankyougoddess) and then to DVLA in Maidstone for my tax disc (it had ran out end of Feb!) and I ended up taking Lucy in with me to the DVLA, the sun was too strong and I wasn't leaving her in the car for possibly an hour.  Again, she was just soooo good.  She sat waiting for me as I was at the counter, and she brought a smile to everyone's face as they entered and left.  Dogs can do that, of course, babies do it too!  And then we were all taxed and ready to continue home to Liverpool.  
What a great feeling it was to get home.  Slightly disorientating at first, the body arrives and the brain comes a bit later, but lovely weather, a cup of tea and straight back to sitting on our lovely hammock.  Lucy felt at home straight away, you can tell and we were so delighted to see Will - Just lovely.  Vegetarian pasties for dinner -what more can a girl ask for!!???  
Now I have the task of unpacking, reorganising and finding space for things.  We gave alot of our storage furniture away, like chest of drawers, wardrobes.  But what I've learnt from being in france is less is more.  The more you have around you, the less you use it.  Anyway, I must press on and get going.  The weather is beautiful here and I'm blessed to be healthy.