Match, a much loved friend. 1994 - 2008
Blacky and Lucky – the long and the short.. journeys, that is.
Off to Beziers one day. Well, a small hill village not far away. I found it just 20 minutes from the autoroute sandy bright in the late afternoon sunshine. Narrow streets and a population seemingly unaware of any streets that they weren’t actually standing in at the time. I had an address but 2 apparent locals and a gendarme had never heard of it. Charmingly, or frustratingly, however you want to put it, none seemed to want to admit to the ignorance and stood with puzzled expressions stroking their chins and looking first this way and then that. Even directions to the mairie was a problem but, by following the little streets in ever decreasing circles I eventually found a little square containing both it and the post office. The latter was shut so I sought the advice of the 2 ladies in the town hall. More head scratching and then, light dawned. It wasn’t far, on the edge of town behind the cemetery. A new road with new houses, explanation enough of the lack of local awareness.
The house was soon found. I was looking for Blacky, a small dog of indeterminate parentage with a reputation for nervousness and escape. Just what I wanted to hear.
He was brought out to me on a collar and lead that was to go with him, encouraged to have a last pee, and introduced to Roady outside of the car. No problems there though, as I reached down to lift him into the cage he squirmed backwards and slipped out of his collar. My grab was too late; he was off, into the next door garden. Unfortunately it was open at the back and his foster mum and a neighbour disappeared after him. The latter soon returned without him and said she would have to go round in the car, she knew where he was in another street. I wasn’t confident, he hadn’t been here long and wouldn’t find his way ‘home’ as most dogs do and so with some foreboding nevertheless proceeded to load and secure Roady on the front seat next to me. I had intended that they should share the cage, the reason for the recent introduction ceremony, but thought that if Blacky was returned we didn’t want any distraction getting him into the cage.
A miracle, somehow he had been captured and the young lady came walking down the street with him in her arms. He was straight into the cage and she had to hurry off, she had abandoned her car in the middle of a narrow street as she dived out to grab him!
Safely secured we were all on our way.
I reckoned that, with the help of the free autoroute up to Clermont Ferrand, I could get north of that city before needing to park up to eat and sleep for the night. And so it proved, off at the last sortie before the péage and into Clermont before skirting Riom on the old N9 northbound I rolled up at the routier I had picked out to the north of Gannat.
I was very careful to walk the 2 dogs separately; I haven’t lost a dog on a journey yet and did not intend that Blacky should prove his reputation at my expense. That over they were both carefully tethered while I completed the transition arrangements in the car. A less than genial patron had rushed out when he saw my preparations to demand what I was doing and continued this unfriendly attitude inside when he tried to usher me to a single table and overcharge me as a tourist. His logic that I could not be a routier because I drove a car was blown apart by another driver who said that he didn’t remember him coming outside to measure his vehicle and yet another who avowed that a routier was defined as someone who transported goods, animal, vegetable or mineral from one place to another. Dogs counted! Collapse of stout party. The meal was good but with a slightly unpleasant aftertaste. Thankfully, in the morning, his wife was on duty, so departure was more pleasant.
Off to Beziers one day. Well, a small hill village not far away. I found it just 20 minutes from the autoroute sandy bright in the late afternoon sunshine. Narrow streets and a population seemingly unaware of any streets that they weren’t actually standing in at the time. I had an address but 2 apparent locals and a gendarme had never heard of it. Charmingly, or frustratingly, however you want to put it, none seemed to want to admit to the ignorance and stood with puzzled expressions stroking their chins and looking first this way and then that. Even directions to the mairie was a problem but, by following the little streets in ever decreasing circles I eventually found a little square containing both it and the post office. The latter was shut so I sought the advice of the 2 ladies in the town hall. More head scratching and then, light dawned. It wasn’t far, on the edge of town behind the cemetery. A new road with new houses, explanation enough of the lack of local awareness.
The house was soon found. I was looking for Blacky, a small dog of indeterminate parentage with a reputation for nervousness and escape. Just what I wanted to hear.
He was brought out to me on a collar and lead that was to go with him, encouraged to have a last pee, and introduced to Roady outside of the car. No problems there though, as I reached down to lift him into the cage he squirmed backwards and slipped out of his collar. My grab was too late; he was off, into the next door garden. Unfortunately it was open at the back and his foster mum and a neighbour disappeared after him. The latter soon returned without him and said she would have to go round in the car, she knew where he was in another street. I wasn’t confident, he hadn’t been here long and wouldn’t find his way ‘home’ as most dogs do and so with some foreboding nevertheless proceeded to load and secure Roady on the front seat next to me. I had intended that they should share the cage, the reason for the recent introduction ceremony, but thought that if Blacky was returned we didn’t want any distraction getting him into the cage.
A miracle, somehow he had been captured and the young lady came walking down the street with him in her arms. He was straight into the cage and she had to hurry off, she had abandoned her car in the middle of a narrow street as she dived out to grab him!
Safely secured we were all on our way.
I reckoned that, with the help of the free autoroute up to Clermont Ferrand, I could get north of that city before needing to park up to eat and sleep for the night. And so it proved, off at the last sortie before the péage and into Clermont before skirting Riom on the old N9 northbound I rolled up at the routier I had picked out to the north of Gannat.
I was very careful to walk the 2 dogs separately; I haven’t lost a dog on a journey yet and did not intend that Blacky should prove his reputation at my expense. That over they were both carefully tethered while I completed the transition arrangements in the car. A less than genial patron had rushed out when he saw my preparations to demand what I was doing and continued this unfriendly attitude inside when he tried to usher me to a single table and overcharge me as a tourist. His logic that I could not be a routier because I drove a car was blown apart by another driver who said that he didn’t remember him coming outside to measure his vehicle and yet another who avowed that a routier was defined as someone who transported goods, animal, vegetable or mineral from one place to another. Dogs counted! Collapse of stout party. The meal was good but with a slightly unpleasant aftertaste. Thankfully, in the morning, his wife was on duty, so departure was more pleasant.
We made very good time to Valenciennes, I had allowed for delays around Paris but the going was so good that I averaged over 70 all the way. This presented a slight problem in that I arrived 3 hours before the rendezvous time of 5pm at a McDonald’s just to the south of the city. The adopters of Blacky were coming from Brussels and my choice of a meeting place was fortunate because it gave me time to checkout my emails and also work out the logistics of my next job. On the way north I had received a text giving an address in Tourcoing to collect another small chap and take him towards Paris.
The 2 young Belgian ladies arrived early and Blacky was carefully transferred from one car to the other. They were delighted with him and Roady and I set out for the half hour journey to a routier which I had marked many years ago but couldn’t remember. It turned out to be a small building surrounded by flat and open fields over which an icy wind was blowing. It wasn’t open but I wasn’t too worried, some of these places shut for the afternoon, only opening in time for the evening meal. I transformed the car again while we waited and took Roady for a short walk. By 6pm I was getting a little suspicious at the lack of activity and enquired at a house next door. I was hardly surprised to be told by an old lady that it only opened at midday but fortunately there was still time for me to find somewhere else. I had a memory of a Centre Routier at Lesquin on the outskirts of Lille and accordingly set off up the autoroute to test my memory again.
It was encouraging when leaving at sortie 1 to see a sign for the CR, but at the first traffic lights, no further sign and no recognition from me. I explored first one road then another and was gratified to see a large red restaurant sign loom out of the darkness surrounded by many parked lorries. Not the CR as such, that was further away, but no doubt as to this place’s popularity and, after finding a suitable parking spot and walking Roady once again, I was inside the warm bar for a really nice meal and, more importantly this time, a friendly welcome.
By the time I was tucked up in bed with Kindle as a night cap it was plain from the star laden sky that this was going to be a cold night. Me in my warm quilt and Roady in a tight little ball alongside we had no problems in sleeping right though to the alarm at 6. The resto was open so, after my mate had a little walk and waited, almost patiently, for me to put away the sleeping gear, it was inside for the usual brief breakfast and cleanup.
On the map all the motorways around Lille look fearfully confusing. They are old and could do with resurfacing in places but, with one notable exception where I had to dart across 2 lanes due to a very late sign, were not difficult to follow. I found my junction and the main road into Tourcoing off which was my destination but had made a mistake of listing the streets before mine on the left, too far away for me to see. After guessing the distance required I turned left anyway and left again and, hey presto, found myself not only on the right street but almost right outside the very house.
Again I was early, about an hour, so we parked outside and listened to the radio for a while. I thought that 25 minutes before rendezvous was not too much so gave Roady his breakfast, he is a tried and trusted easy traveller, before ringing the bell on the gate. The lady of the house came out with her children and Lucky, another one unsure of his origins, but with definitely a touch of the chasse about him. In fact when introduced to my co-pilot they could almost have been brothers. Brothers, perhaps not, but good friends from the off, they were, so it was a shared cage for them. The picture gives an impression of a certain aloofness but the truth was far from that and they spent the whole journey to Crecy la Chapelle (77) curled up together in 2 little balls.
It was encouraging when leaving at sortie 1 to see a sign for the CR, but at the first traffic lights, no further sign and no recognition from me. I explored first one road then another and was gratified to see a large red restaurant sign loom out of the darkness surrounded by many parked lorries. Not the CR as such, that was further away, but no doubt as to this place’s popularity and, after finding a suitable parking spot and walking Roady once again, I was inside the warm bar for a really nice meal and, more importantly this time, a friendly welcome.
By the time I was tucked up in bed with Kindle as a night cap it was plain from the star laden sky that this was going to be a cold night. Me in my warm quilt and Roady in a tight little ball alongside we had no problems in sleeping right though to the alarm at 6. The resto was open so, after my mate had a little walk and waited, almost patiently, for me to put away the sleeping gear, it was inside for the usual brief breakfast and cleanup.
On the map all the motorways around Lille look fearfully confusing. They are old and could do with resurfacing in places but, with one notable exception where I had to dart across 2 lanes due to a very late sign, were not difficult to follow. I found my junction and the main road into Tourcoing off which was my destination but had made a mistake of listing the streets before mine on the left, too far away for me to see. After guessing the distance required I turned left anyway and left again and, hey presto, found myself not only on the right street but almost right outside the very house.
Again I was early, about an hour, so we parked outside and listened to the radio for a while. I thought that 25 minutes before rendezvous was not too much so gave Roady his breakfast, he is a tried and trusted easy traveller, before ringing the bell on the gate. The lady of the house came out with her children and Lucky, another one unsure of his origins, but with definitely a touch of the chasse about him. In fact when introduced to my co-pilot they could almost have been brothers. Brothers, perhaps not, but good friends from the off, they were, so it was a shared cage for them. The picture gives an impression of a certain aloofness but the truth was far from that and they spent the whole journey to Crecy la Chapelle (77) curled up together in 2 little balls.
After kindly donating a bottle of water for the dogs Carole waved us goodbye and we headed for the autoroute. My plan was to return via Valenciennes and then south on the D roads past Laon and Soissons on the N2 towards Paris. We made very good time and before too long I saw in the distance across the flat Picardy plain the iconic outline of the 12th century cathedral of Notre Dame de Laon sticking proudly towards the sky. No wonder the Romans fortified this place, and no wonder that it has suffered many times during periods of unrest. Our road skirts the city from the NE but we never lose sight of the cathedral as we move round it. Sadly, the sight becomes increasingly less pleasant as the ancient edifice becomes partly obscured by modern slabs of concrete flats or offices.
Then on past Soissons looking now for Meaux. Our route takes us onto the N330, Meaux one way, Senlis and Charles de Gaulle the other, a junction familiar to me. To the north it takes me to the rendezvous with the Dutch rescue organisation The Lady’s Rescue, when on a couple of occasions I have transferred a cargo of Phoenix dogs for a new life in Holland. To the south past a sad sight, a new building under construction in the place where there was once a convenient routier restaurant. The road becomes an autoroute and then to the A4 junction, here I should turn right for a short péage section to sortie 16 and then via a succession of small lanes to the isolated hamlet of Serbonne. One small single track bridge over a stream is the only connection to the outside world, but first I have to find that exit from the motorway. No sign of 16 but here is 15 and now 14. I have the strong feeling that something is wrong. A convenient rest area and a look at the map confirms my mistake, 16 is limited access, in the other direction, so I spend a few minutes revising my route from the next opportunity and jotting down the relevant directions. A walk for both dogs, we are, despite an elementary mistake, still running early and then off on the final leg.
Over the little bridge, 4th left, 1st left and there is the house, the last one next to the fields in a dead end. Half an hour early, after 2pm was quoted, I rang the gate bell nevertheless and then settled own for a bit of lunch while we waited. Exactly on 2 a large 4x4 arrived, the gates opening obediently to the unseen signal. We too drove in and within minutes Lucky was in his new home and making friends with a large and luxuriously coated Chow.
As for Roady and me it was towards home for us too. 6 hours from here I reckon, and so it was, we rolled into the drive at 8pm and a welcome dinner for both of us.
Total distance 2,255 kms
As for Roady and me it was towards home for us too. 6 hours from here I reckon, and so it was, we rolled into the drive at 8pm and a welcome dinner for both of us.
Total distance 2,255 kms