C'est Parti (Holiday 1/14)

I always try to think of the travel as part of the holiday. You're seeing new places along the way, distant from your norm, and most importantly away from the desk or the hoovering. This is obviously easier to do if you're not locking yourself away in a little tin box to take to the skies. But driving south through the UK can also often drain the enjoyment and cancel wanderlust.

That said, the drive from Edinburgh to Portsmouth was one of never grinding to a halt, certainly less stop-start and stressful than the drive to Dover has ever been for us (partially down to no M25 or traversing Dartford I'd suggest), and delivered us to the port city with plenty of time to enjoy the southern warmth and a bite to eat before the evening ferry boarding.

Not that the trip wasn't without its moments as people whizzed about left, right and centre on the three lane motorway, and doing so faster the further south we ventured. There were a couple of serious incidents which had clearly happened no long before we arrived on the scene (with emergency services just getting there), and in general you were left thinking you needed your wits about you.

But, around 8 and a half hours after we set off, factoring in a couple of service station stops to refresh body and mind, we were in Portsmouth.

We've done this trip for the ferry here once before, usually opting (I now struggle to see why) for Dover instead. And while Dover has an end-of-the-world feel; they've managed to retain, or rather create, a bit of a buzz around the Portsmouth docks area.

There are bars and restaurants all over, and while there's nothing out of the norm, filled with chains like Wagamama and All Bar One, there's an atmosphere about the place. Everything is pedestrianised, and it seems to be a destination in its own right, with an airy shopping centre, those clear sea views, and the Spinnaker Tower reaching high above it all.

Dinner sought out, at one of the Carluccio chain restaurants, as distance from the main throng, the sunset was taken in before a succession of seemingly endless queues into the darkness of the cross channel ferry port.

Though we got on the ferry. So the queues did end....

A weirdly cursory bag check after a query on carrying any sharp objects was both a peremptory peer and ageist, with none of the various octogenarians being asked to open their bags when they clearly hadn't even heard the question properly.

And it's the old ones you have to look out for...

The boat gets going a little after the scheduled 10.45pm departure, and soon the bars are filled with people not perturbed by the 5.45am rise (which is French time, so in real terms 4.45am). Even more telling of the British psyche (as most of the passengers appear to be) is the queue of people in the shop, waiting for the instant we're in international waters, so they can buy the alcohol and cigarettes they already have lined up on the counter. They're joking about it in the queue, like 60 year old vultures eyeing up someone eating a Big Mac and expecting it to be dropped.

Hypocritically of course I buy a bottle of Normandy cider from the self-service restaurant to take back to our cabin, and indulge while reading, and wondering how many people will be rolling off the ferry in the morning still over the limit.