Custom Reynolds 853 completely inappropriate London-to-Paris mobile

I'm back in the uk for a couple of hours so have the chance to upload some photos from France. There are admittedly very few, as from the outset it wasn't at all enjoyable and I didn't feel like documenting my misery. As such, most of the photos revolve around food.

This was the breakfast that greeted me on the Pride of Kent. The sight of it was enough to make one man vomit into his shopping bag, and I did have to hold onto the tray while eating to stop it sliding around, but the fried bread was very good.

This is dover while I was settling down to my fry up. You can tell by how bright it is outside that I was very, very late, and we hadn't even set off at this stage (I was literally the first person on the ferry). I also forgot to mention in the earlier write up that I had bought a ticket for the friday, not the saturday, so had to purchase a new one at the port, which was annoying. I had also got it in to my head that the ferry was at 8.30, when I was travelling at 6.30 (supposedly) although fortunately I realised this before I went to bed on Friday night.

I have no photos of the vile weather in Calais, you will just have to take my word for it.

This was my lunch, veal steak, white wine source and freedom fries. It was just what we needed after the snow and hale of the morning, although the main thing that sticks in my memory from lunch is the short but catastrophic (to the ride) spell of sheet rain that fell the moment we left.

This is the hotel room that we stayed in in Ameins after giving up on reaching Paris. It seemed quite apt that we had to give up in no small part due to the condition of our feet, and ended up in the Somme.

This is the ride of shame that escorted us, heads heavy with shame in to Paris. The reason we had to stay in Amien is the last train leaves at 6.00pm. Not quite sure why, but it does.

Here is the (filthy) bike in the lovely apartment that we were staying in in Paris. The photo isn't too clear, but I can assure you that it is in one piece.

There was one more small problem to overcome before I could return home. I met my wife in Paris, and she had brought with her our eight month old daughter. I was returning to England with them on the Eurostar. After booking my bike into the luggage hold I took my daughter from my wife, placed her in her sling on my chest, where she fell asleep. We then went to board the train, on the way going through passport control. When I had boarded the boat at Calais the French border guard stationed there had laughed at me and told me not to slow down whilst comically waving me through the car lane I had ended up in, so I had not shown my passport, nor crucially had it been scanned. When I got to the UK border force checkpoint at GdN this was a problem, as it seemed I had never entered the country, and I also had a large lump attached to my chest (my daughter) which I didn't want to uncover. After proving that it was a human child under my jacket, I had to prove my bike was on the train, and try to explain why I had ridden the first leg of my journey rather than catching the train with my wife (I couldn't) and why I hadn't shown my passport. This was finally smoothed over and I went through to baggage scan. Unfortunately I had forgotten my new tool purchase in Calais, a Bahco hacksaw! Fortunately the french customs people found the whole thing much more amusing, and I got to keep the hacksaw. I boarded the train, baby still asleep, got into London, left my wife and daughter to ride the final leg of the journey home, and got a puncture. When I find my digital camera I will take some proper photos of the bike, but thats all I have for now.