Yippee ! It's time for another drive through France for a much earned family holiday. This time, we're trying St Malo in Brittany. Like last year's trip to La Rochelle, we are taking the train through the Channel Tunnell on Le Shuttle.  Unlike last year's trip, though, we have Kev's parents in the car with us, and as a result of that we have a roofbox on top of the car, and also a booking for a "high" vehicle. "High" in Eurotunnel terms means more than 1.85m. The old Peugeot 807 struggles with that when not wearing a hat. With the hat on there's no way.

We also decided to set off much earlier in the morning for a midday train. Friday midday train, 150 or so miles to drive round the M1 and M25..."You do the Math!" as they say over the pond. Early start - lots of driving and a lot of luggage to put in an unreachable roofbox first.

  

Day 2 started at a fairly leisurely pace with some breakfast at the Ibis. For Kas, Kev and Ami it had been a restless night with lots of sneezing, coughing and changing of beds. Ami, bless her little heart, had spent half the night getting up to fetch tissues for Kas. In the other camp there had apparently been several hours of sound snoozing, which was only broken by Izzy needing a new nappy and then taking half an hour to settle back down again, during which time she was talking away like a talkie thing.

This time around we learned our lesson from last year and decided that the hotel breakfast was probably a good deal. And so it proved to be. There was a good selection of fruits, cereals, breads, drinks and other goodies. Plenty for all, in fact. I'm still not quite sure why they allow you to pre-pay adult meals but not childrens', but the kids ate well along with the rest of us and by French standards we all got our money's worth.

And so quickly upstairs to cram stuff into the overnight bags and clean our teeth, and then down to the Batmobile for a bit of cruising. Kas took the wheel and we quickly discovered that we were more or less on the road Felicity wanted us to be, and also were pointing in the right direction. So we escaped from Rouen very easily and were soon heading along the A13 in the direction of Caen. We had to push hard on the wheel to avoid driving down the A28, which is where you go for La Rochelle. Not that way this time, thankyou very much!

The road towards Caen is fairly uneventful apart from the large quantities of north Europeans heading in the same direction. All the toll stations were heaving and our choice of booth was limited at all of them by the fact that the credit card only lanes have a 1.8m height limit. Nett result of this is that anyone with a caravan, 4x4, people carrier or roofbox can't pay by credit card. You only realise that far too late oin the day and so there's a large number of cars doing the soft shoe shuffle between lanes at the last second and generally causing confusion. We let in a bloke in a big 4x4 mainly because he opened the window and actually asked us. It wasn't just because he was English, it was because he was nice about it.Ya Boo Sucks! to the French family in the Volvo who pulled in and nearly took our front bumper off.

The journey to Caen therefore took a bit longer than Felicity predicted and very much in time for an early lunch or late elevenses. We refuelled first, and this, too, took longer than necessary because the pay at pump insisted I put the nozzle back before it would take the credit card. I had put the nozzle in before I noticed the pay at pump option. The Peugeot isn't the most thirsty of cars but she does have a big tank, so it costs a couple of quid to fil her up from near empty. Last fill up was last Sunday though, so a three quarters of a tank has seen Kas around MK for five days and then driven us to Caen from Milton Keynes.

The Giberville Services can best be described as a fuel station on steriods. French motorway services seem to come in two types - big, well provisioned ones, and oversized fuel stops. This is a pretty busy motorway on a Saturday in summer and the immediate prolem when we parked was the large and ever increasing queue for the toilets. Normal French arrangements apply, meaning that the ladies queue was actually a queue for any of the cubicles regardless of which room they're in. Kev took Izzy into the gents (the baby change had no toilet and the disabled was locked....) and played the "this is the gents and I'm a gent" card despite carrying a small female. Well, it was that or a damp shirt.

The services did have a small kids play area so the girls got a bit of a run around while the rest of us queued, rotated bicycles and checked football scores, as it were. Having finished the necessary we then did a bit of free-form buying of drinks and biscuits with no particular structure and al ended up outside with a drink and some biscuits. And some smoothies (Fraise & Banane flavour) which Ami managed to knock over on the table. Good job it was an outside table.

So back to the car, with Kev at the helm and granddad translating Felicity and reading the book. We had to negotiate our way round Caen and an enormous queue for one of the junctions (our junction, as it happens) and then on to the A84 towards Avranches. This is a toll free section and hence also queue-free. It was quite busy but kept going all the way and it actually passed away very quickly. Just after Avranches it becomes the N175 and goes single lane for a bit. Not a problem as such except for the near tail-ending when the two lanes suddenly turned into a queue just round a blind corner. Sharp braking ? Hmmm! Just as well we don't have a very heavy car with a roofbox on top.

The N175 turns into the N176 and gains an extra lane at Pontorson and we breezed through this section and then the final few kms to Le Tronchet, our home for the next two weeks. It proved really easy to find the place, as it was all well signposted.

The apartment was ready and the owners were there to welcome us. In particular, they welcomed us with a fridge full of food that was more than enough for lunch. They had very nicely left us some wine as well. Can't be bad. So we sorted out the sleeping arrangements and unloaded the car and got some lunch and took the roofbox off.

After that, there were two streams of activity. Ami, Izzy and Granddad stayed put and played in the garden. Kev, Kas and Granny went shopping for food in nearby Plerguer. The Supermarche Utile in Plerguer proved adequate for most purposes and we were back fairly soon and unloaded. We then remembered what we had forgotten to buy. Milk. Can't get Izzy to sllep without milk. So Kas got her swimming kit on to stop Ami from exploding and Kev jumped back in the bus and went back to Plerguer. Didn't take long though.

Tea involved three types of sausages, potato wedges and salad. Then the kids got a bath and went to bed. Granny and Granddad retired to the studio and Kas and Kev had a glass of wine and contemplated the holiday to come.

We got here fairly easily. Not much crying, not much complaining and not so much time. We made it here without the portable DVD player and without much use of the iPod. In fact, it was quite a pleasant trip down.

  

First full day and first opportunity to go for a swim before most people are even up for breakfast. OK, so Ami has an obsession, but I guess that's why we chose this place rather than the many others. There's no way she would survive somewhere with no pool. So Ami got out of bed and put her swimming costume on straight away. It wasn't that early, but she was itching for it.  And because Grandad hadn't come round early on then we had to get up early too and go with her.

It was quite a cloudy morning and whilst not cold, it wasn't really warm either. We managed to hold her back long enough to get some pain au chocolat down her before swimming. Izzy joined the party too (somewhat slower) and the main problem was that Ami ignored instructions and dived in without waiting for either of us. OK so her swimming isn't too bad now but it is imposing a little bit much to expect that the owner will keep an eye on our kids as well as his own grandkids. Hmmm ! we need to watch her more closely.

Anyway, a good old swim was had by all until the shivering finally got the better of Izzy and we started to pack up.

By lunchtime the weather was getting progressively better so we got cleaned up and headed off for St Malo for the afternoon. We didn't have a particular plan but we had a list of geocaches loaded up on the GPS for central St Malo, most of which are around the outer side of the city ramparts. The caching exploits are separately logged on the Geo-Kassia site so aren't duplicated here, but suffice to say we found a few, and got irritated at not being able to find some others.

The "old town" of St Malo was almost completely rebuilt after the war in the style of the original (but presumably with better plumbing). The effect is good. It looks great and whilst the streets are quite narrow there isn't a lot of traffic and the bodies move along fairly quickly. Obviously we totally ignored our host's advice and tried to park near the old town. we had to queue to get into a park and even then we had to play "stalk a punter" because we were let in when no spaces were actually available. Flamin' tourists....

We began our walk around the ramparts from the Chateau end and proceeded in a generally westerley direction. At one point it was obvious Izzy and Granny were struggling a bit so we split into 2 groups, with Grandad, Granny and Izzy mooching about and getting ice creams while Kev, Kas and Ami crossed the causeway onto the Île du Grand Bé, home to the tomb of François-René de Chateaubriand. Apparently he was a writer as well as his time inventing a steak (or was it a red wine ?). Anyway, he's buried on this little island off St Malo. Also buried on the island is a geocache. Whilst huntng for this particular one we had our first experience of a cacher-jam. A nice Dutch gentleman standing above us said "I think the thing you're looking for is just here". And then his Mrs sitting on a rock below said "It's within 2 metres of here" Points to us though, as we (Kev) actually spotted the suspicious looking pile of rocks and checked beneath to reveal the goodies. We dropped off a geocoin transported from Milton Keynes and then, behold, another group of cachers. French, this time, we think. Anyway, we had to ask them politely to look away while we hid it again, but even then it's pretty obvious when you're there.

Said Dutch couple also gave us a less than subtle pointer at the othet two nearby ones, so we set off back across the causeway filled with confidence. Halfway over we saw Grandad waving at us and met to confirm they would be waiting at a nearby waterside cafe and having an ice cream. Works for us. So we found those two quickly and the family reunited at a beachside cafe for a much earned beer/ice cream/whatever.

The afternoon was moving on so we decided to mooch into the old town for some dinner. One final cache on the way which turned out to be the sneakiest plant ever. So sneaky, in fact, that it took Kas a while to notice when she had it in her hand. Read the blog for further information, but it was a cunning little thing.

We entered the old town and pretty much immediately came upon a small square, in which we found a bloke doing hair braids. Ami immediately decided she wanted one, and so did Izzy. Kas was havering a bit. We dragged the girls off for dinner on a promise of returning later.

Dinner was at a small bistro on the Rue de Chartres. We had a selection of pizzas, pasta and chicken nuggets, as ever. It was OK but fairly uninspiring, but I guess that's what you get in a tourist trap like this. After dinner we scooted off back up the hill to the hair braiding guy only to discover he was just packing up. I'm sure that wouldn't happen in La Rochelle. So we trudged back down the hill with two slightly grumpy and distinctly tired little girls back to the car and back home.

Our first full day finished, with a general absence of grief. Both old and young shot off to bed as soon as we got home and Kev and Kas were left supping wine and struggling to get a response out of the on-site wi-fi. It's not very quick.