Aysedasi's Le Mans

Having done all of my packing already I was able to have a reasonably relaxing day on the departure Thursday, even though I was still rather concerned about the state of my stomach.  Fortunately, the symptoms of discomfort I had been experiencing at last seemed to be easing, and I had my fingers very tightly crossed that they would disappear altogether, thus allowing me to enjoy the week-end.  Jayne had been extremely good about Le Mans this year.  We had no crossed words about my going and when the time came for my departure on the Thursday evening, the farewells were said, and I was able to set off in the best possible frame of mind.  Unfortunately, I had not managed to set up my mobile phone (another new acquisition) for use in France in time, and little did I know that this failure would come back to haunt me in a few days time!

So with reports from Jayne that there were problems with the traffic on the motorway, I set off slightly earlier than I had intended on the Thursday evening to pick Peter up from Milford-on-Sea, arriving at his house at about 6.30.  We were soon off on the road to Chilworth for the rendezvous at Ian Gordon’s home.  There was little or no traffic to speak of, and we arrived at Rotherwood at about 7.40 p.m.  If I had thought that we would be the first Tourists to arrive, I was wrong.  Already there were Martyn (who had only just arrived, having driven down to Hampshire from Cardiff that same evening), and Terry.  Ian, Martyn and Terry had been joined by Richard Smith from across the road, who was enjoying a send-off glass of wine with them.  Once again, we remarked that it was now a long time (6 years, in fact), since Richard had joined us on one of our Le Mans adventures and it was about time he made a date in his diary for another one.

The wine soon started to flow and Ian started to dispense pizza for those who had not yet eaten.  After my trials and tribulations, stomach-wise, over the past few days, I didn’t indulge to any great extent.  Before long, Alan arrived with a passenger.  As you know, Ian had told me that Bruce Fownes would be coming with us again, however, Alan’s passenger was most definitely not Bruce!  It transpired that Bruce had decided not to go after all, and, as a result, Alan had asked a friend of his, Clive Burgess, if he would like to join us.  Clive was therefore to be the only Le Mans “newbie” this year!  We were now just waiting on Chris Green and his arrival was pretty important, as he was to be the second driver (Martyn being the other).  This year’s trip would see the first for Ian as a passenger and not a driver.  The reason for this was that he and Carol had already been over to France to stay with Robert in Nice (from where they had travelled to Monaco for the Grand Prix).  Carol had stayed in Nice with Ian’s car, and he and Robert would be joining her back in Nice immediately after the race.  So not only did Ian not have a car to drive to Le Mans, he would not be returning to England with us after the race.  Hence the need for a second driver, and Chris had agreed to fulfill this role.

Chris soon arrived, and it was with some consternation that we took in the details of his transport!  Although Chris was still driving the Golf VR6 that he had travelled to Le Mans in (with myself as a passenger) in 1994.  He had decided against taking it over on this occasion, however, and had persuaded one of his clients, a car dealer, to lend him a vehicle for the week-end.  What he got was a Jeep (not the army variety!), but in the most horrendous turquoise colour - we wouldn't miss that on the road!  Having only driven it a relatively short distance since collecting it, Chris was less than amused - “The brakes are completely shot”, he said, filling those who would be travelling with him with great confidence!  Peter and I had already made our plans (in much the same way as we did last year), to make sure that we were passengers in Martyn’s BMW (and that was before we knew what Chris would be driving!), and I made sure that our bags and coats etc. were placed behind Martin’s car ready to be loaded.  We were both looking forward to the trip over in Martyn’s relatively new 528i - if you are going to travel, you might as well do it in comfort and style...

The pizza and the wine now finished, it was time to make final decisions as to who was travelling in which car.  Peter and I had no difficulty bagging our seats with Martyn, and Ian chose to join him as well, leaving Alan, Clive and Terry to join Chris in the marvelous turquoise Jeep.  I suppose we must have left Ian's home at about 8.30 and were soon onto the motorway heading for the ferry terminal at Portsmouth.  This year, as in 1999, we were travelling with P & O on their 10.15 p.m. sailing to Le Havre.  We arrived at the ferry terminal in good time, to be met by very long and slow-moving queues up to the booking desks.  It seemed as though we were in for a longer wait than usual!  Having been in the queue for the best part of an hour, we finally reached the booking desk at about 10.30, and we were then quickly through to the second queue for the ferry itself.  And then we waited some more.....  The delay was considerable.  We were informed that this was at least partly due to the late arrival of the ferry, the Pride of Portsmouth (by now familiar to us), however it seemed to us that things were not helped by the fact that four ferries were due to depart from Southampton at around the same time, one to Caen, one to Cherbourg, one to Spain and our own to Le Havre.  Not particularly good organisation on one of the busiest evenings for travel to France during the entire year.  Although the ferry was due to leave at 10.15, we didn't get on board until a hour later, but, as in 1999 (when the same thing had happened), I knew the ferry would make up the lost time during the night crossing. 

After getting on board and leaving the cars, we set off to find the cabins Ian had sensibly booked for us again.  He was a little concerned about them as they were down in the bowels of the ship, however we found that we had only to negotiate one flight of stairs, up and then down again, and our cabins were immediately in front of us.  We shared the two cabins in the same fashion as the car arrangements.  It is now that we change to French-time, chronologically speaking, and with our watches adjusted forward by one hour, we set off to the bar for a couple of beers.  None of our group of four were fussed about sitting down for a meal, so we left Chris, Alan, Terry and Clive to find themselves a table in the restaurant.  Looking back, in many ways it seems to me that this set the tone for a number of things which were to follow during the weekend.  The theme of Chris and his “gang” doing their own thing would be encountered more than once during the trip!

After we had polished off a couple of beers in The Londoner bar, Ian, Martin, Peter and I made our way down to the self-service restaurant.  It was by now after 1.00 a.m. and, although we were all feeling pretty tired, we were also a bit peckish.  After stopping in to see how the others were getting on in the restaurant - they were doing fine, onto their fourth bottle of red wine by now! - we paused for some coffee and baguettes.  Actually, Peter must have been feeling more than just a little peckish as he tucked into pasta!  Our repast finished, we retired to our cabin for what was inevitably going to be a modest amount of sleep - just four hours or so!  Ian was off to the land of nod as soon as his head hit the pillow and before the rest of us were even into our bunks!  Fortunately, the sea was very calm and even though we were sleeping down at the waterline (or was it below it?), there was little noise or disturbance.