Lynda and I decided to go shopping in the Carrefour near Calais last weekend.
The excuse being that we needed lots of food and beer for our upcoming barbecue
and not that we both enjoy food shopping, mai non.
The trip over was very smooth, we arrived very early for our train (I
way overestimated the time it would take) but we were able to book onto
an earlier train. To get on to the train you drive along a copiously
overmarked road, up onto a bridge and then down onto the platform. Drive along
the platform and then into the train itself. Loading is efficient, we waited
perhaps 10 minutes before the train started moving. If you have a book to read
then the 30 minute crossing passes very quickly indeed.
The Carrefour is part of a huge shopping centre just next to the port. There’s
also a number of shops that’ll be familiar including a Tesco duty free, or
whatever duty free is called these days, beer and wine shop.
After a hectic day of consumerism we returned to the UK with about 20 bottles
of wine, 72 cans of beer, a dozen different cheeses, many different cuts of
meat, including some horse steaks for Bob; we now have quite a full fridge.
This coming weekend is our first event in the new house; a combined barbecue,
housewarming and birthday party for Lynda. We have a lot of friends coming
over from the continent, the house is going to be very full indeed.