Sat Navs and other annoying things......

Of which there seem to have been a few today. It was inevitable, it had all been going too well, and what is the daily report without some kind of rant??

The sat nav. A thing I had resisted and not just to preserve the illusion of superiority by map reading, but out of the well founded fear that I couldn't trust it to do the right thing and if I have to double check then I might as well just read the map. I am resistant to the idea of yielding responsibility to a machine, and rightly so it turns out.

The panic over fuel supplies impinges on me however much I want to ignore it and carry on until I spot the happy site of a Carrefour or a Leclerc where the diesel is something like 12 cents a litre cheaper, but prudence sends me in the direction of Melle where the hoteliers assure me there is definitely lots of fuel as some was delivered yesterday. But the sat-nav wants me to go back to the motorway to Poitiers and spends the next 20 minutes, even after I fill up at the (ouch) local price of 1.22 per litre, trying to send me back in the opposite  direction. Now my own investigations revealed that there is a sort of triangle of motorways arriving at Le Mans, next major town, and I wish to go right up the middle on an A road. But the sat-nav is having none of it and my suspicion is that I spent at least part of the journey not only defying it and shouting "NO" but being insidiously and needlessly diverted, even after I reprogrammed it to ask to go VIA the places which ought to keep me on my chosen route. The jury is still out but I won even if I did get tired or answering back and ignoring it.

When I arrived at Saint Martins Bolougne, it was to the usual Premiere Classe (which managed by a quirk in their online booking system to book me two rooms and one of those with a child in tow, then took a week or arguing to cancel one and refund it, but I digress and that's another story anyway). I do not like the place or the rooms but it is exactly where it needs to be and the only affordable room I can find in the area (ie withing half an hour of the tunnel). But it is only 7 o'clock so I can finally do what I've wanted to and  go explore the old town. But the local map does not cover much apart from the down town bit and the hotel is nowhere to be seen let alone the road to and from, but hey I am walking down there and going to get a taxi back so how hard can it be..........I should know better. I should add that I did try to google the town map so I could see for myself but waiting for the internet let alone google maps to load was slower than the entire walk. Not much point in free Wi-Fi if it doesn't work, is there? Probably all the Brits watching bloody telly, I thought sourly. (And probably true as it worked fine the next morning)

I walked (downhill all the way) into the old town and did the exploring, all  round the walls of the fortified town etc and then settled for a perfectly nice set menu in a restaurant overlooking on the square. Then I asked them to call me a taxi and that's when it all went wrong. Nobody was answering the phone and after many attempts and about 10 minutes, the proprietor politely apologised and suggested I went to the taxi rank, along with a gallic shrug which I ought to have interpreted better and just started walking. Uphill. Instead I plodded further downhill and away from the hotel, found the place and there I stood watching the world but never a taxi go by for a whole 45 minutes after which I gave up and walked home anyway. Uphill. Via the Ibis hotel (I'm seeing how much THAT is next time) in the town where I called in to ask for help. As in, where on this map am I and which way is where my hotel is? Please? Lovely young man on reception offered sympathy and coffee and pointed me in the right direction along with the reluctant advice that it was a long way......I know, I know.

So soon after midnight I arrived back to my room, just a tad out of breath and inclined to the view that Bolougne clearly has insufficient taxis or the buggers are out on strike along with the tanker delivery drivers. At this point I resented still further the prospect of needing to leave before 7.30am and decided to change my tunnel booking for even just half an hour later. That done, I fell asleep.

7am alarm, pack, breakfast and in the van for 8 to arrive with the required 20 mins ahead of 8.50 departure. 20 mins travel time, perfect, but no, the screen which should check me in is blank, not a hint of life. So I reverse out of that line and go to another one, which for the first time I can remember does not recognise my number plate but asks for booking details. Which I put in, get rejected and repeat that 3 times possibly 4 before hitting the info button for help. The operator inputs exactly what I just did and it works of course. She informs me I am on the 9.20 departure, I protest I am booked for 8.50 (and only that because I changed it by half an hour) but she reprimands me that I am late, I should check in 20 mins before departure and it is now something like 18, to which I quite reasonably reply that I WAS there in time but the machine was not working and then the other one wouldn't accept me straight away. This I am informed, is my fault for pulling back out of the line, it is not allowed and there are notices to say so! (which naturally I had not seen, being more concerned with whether there was something on the stupid machine I should have pressed to light it up). Such is life.

If this is the worst that happens on a journey I can live with it, mind you, it's a lot better than some of the previous disasters and even the unexplained speed limit restrictions and heavy traffic back in Blighty cause no more than a bit more time going by before I arrive - joy of joys - in Gosport, my home town, to my Mum's, bless her cotton socks. The garden is looking wonderful too and I have the prospect of a small gig that evening, seeing a band I met at Purbeck festival back in 2013 and been friends since. I even manage to unload the stuff which needs to stay in Gosport and not go on to the midlands, including some stock to put on Amazon, which is duly done.

All that planning may still be paying off, despite the sat nav, the French taxi drivers and the vagaries of the Eurotunnel booking system not to mention the traffic in the UK.