Four countries in one day!

So, having arrived safely in France, we decided to head straight for Luxembourg.  We stopped briefly to refuel, then headed off to an “aire” for a picnic lunch.  It was all very British.  We sat, in the cold wind, eating homemade cheese sandwiches, drinking tea, and kicking a ball around.  We also realised, with great horror, that we had lost Rabbit.  Utter disaster!  We know she had her in the hotel room at 10:00 (good old photographic evidence), but between leaving hotel and arriving at the first service station, she had well and truly disappeared.  I thought Cornelia would suffer an epic breakdown, but amazingly, she just shrugged and said that she thought Rabbit had probably just gone off on her own adventure.  That didn’t stop me from emailing the hotel twice, begging them to check and recheck (they did, and they couldn’t find Rabbit), and then thinking about it all evening.  Apparently, I was slightly more devastated at the loss of a Gang Member than Cornelia!  I think it reminded me of a time I lost my favourite teddy on a walk to a restaurant in Lanzarote one year, and my father refused to retrace our steps to find it.  There’s possibly at least a year of counselling in there somewhere….!

Anyway, we drove through France and Belgium finally arriving in Luxembourg late evening.  It was sunny, but cold, and we had plenty of time to pitch our awning and work out where to put everything.  I tell a lie… we still haven’t worked out where to put everything, but we are managing!

We were hoping to go out for a meal locally, but we tried two different restaurants and they were both closed.  Bugsy was desperate for macaroni cheese or spag bol, but had to settle for pasta and tomato sauce, back at the campsite, which she scoffed down.  It is lovely to all sit and eat as a family.  We haven’t really had much of an opportunity to do this in the past, but I think that is how most days will be now.  She is a painfully slow eater (she ate her roast beef so slowly the other day, it had turned grey by the time she swallowed it!!) so we were both getting “slightly” frustrated, but she finished eventually!

She went to bed without any fuss whatsoever.  She is sleeping in the downstairs of the van, on the seat which has been laid completely flat for her.  She is snug as a bug in a rug.  We, on the other hand, were bloody freezing!  Even Ian (who is most often a warm and sweaty bedmate) was icy cold, and reverted to wearing a t-shirt.  He even had to get the blanket that I had vacuumed-packed (on the basis that we were unlikely to need it)!  Still, once we were asleep, it was a decent night.  In fact, although Bugsy woke up at 06:15, she came into our tent and cuddled up, and everyone fell back to sleep until about 09:30! None of us have had so much sleep for ages!