Back...

We made it back...all the usual things happened; the neighbours in Liverpool deciding to come over for a chat as we were doing last minute panic-packing, the delays on the M6, traffic jams on the M25, the last minute dash into Dover to find the ferry was delayed half an hour due to a robbery in Dogger Bank (see Reginald Perrin for best British Rail excuses), the over-tired bawling babies on the boat, higgledy road signs on the French motorways, very brightly illuminated and empty roads in Belgium, bleary tired bloodshot eyes in Germany, huge pile of post (bills) on arrival in Munich at 5 a.m., sensuous shower, bed.
The only different features were firstly the fact that the English Channel seemed to extend from Birmingham to Belgium and into Germany; there was torrential...and I mean TORRENTIAL rain - a veritable wall of rain all the way along the motorways. I was expecting the road signs to be in fathoms.
The second difference was listening to the Ashes on BBC radio 5 which made the rain much easier to bear (if you don't know what the *%&# I am talking about, don't worry!).