Since James 
was fluent in French having been to school in Paris when his father was posted there, as a senior surgeon he applied to work in France for a year, and we were excited to be going from Leeds to live in Grenoble in south-west France. At that time we had two very young children so our luggage included large items like a double buggy, travel cots, and of course, James’s double bass. All of that, plus four passengers, wouldn’t fit in a single car, so we had to travel in two vehicles. Without properly thinking things through, we made the innocent planthat James would lead in the front car taking passports, map, money, and his double bass, and that I would follow behind with babies and most of the luggage. I envisioned an idyllic meander through rural French countryside. However, because this was the era before mobile phones, internet, and even the Euro, it was completely hare-brained.
On the ferry crossing from Dover to Calais we encountered stormy gales which blew us off course. We finally docked, hours late
r, not in France, but in Belgium. I’m not a great sailor at the best of times, and because I was driving, I couldn’t take anti-nausea medication. In fact I was so ill that I lay on the floor of the heaving vessel thinking I was about to die! When we finally docked in Zeebrugge it was dark and raining, but the fresh air rallied me. As the port officials began to wave vehicles off the ferry, James bundled the babies into my car, then stuck his head through my car window and said: “Follow me out of the port, keep on my tail, and stay on the right!” I remember looking up briefly and seeing his rear-lights disappearing into the stormy night. I started my engine and followed car off the ferry.
Predictably, we very quickly we lost each other in the darkness and pouring rain, but I drove on gamely, following the road and keeping my eyes on the car lights ahead of me, hoping James knew where he was going. After a few miles the car I had been tailing, suddenly overtook a lorry and sped away in the distance. I lost sight of it very quickly. Where was James? I stupidly realised I had no passports, maps or French francs, and two tired kids were wailing on the back seat. I began to panic. Why on earth was I was driving on a dark road in a foreign country with no clear idea of where I was? Realising the danger I was in, I tearfully pulled over in next lay-by. After sitting for a while in the darkness with traffic whizzing past me with the kids ominously silent in the back, my tears soon gave way to a seething anger – how dare my husband drive off into the night and leave me in this predicament!
Suddenly, and completely out of the blue, a car screeched to a halt right behind me in the lay-by. The driver opened his door and walked towards me in the pouring rain. He motioned me to wind down my steamed-up window, and I found myself confronting a very worried but very relieved James. “Thank God! I’ve found you!” he said. “I thought you were following me, but when I turned off the motorway the car behind me shot past and I then realised it wasn’t you that had been on my tail! It’s a miracle that we’ve actually found each other, and that we’re all safe!” Well, I can say that my poor husband stood there in the dark, getting soaked in the lashing rain while I spluttered quite an earful! He had the grace to be contrite. After finally ridding myself of all my pent-up indignation, I got out of the car and we hugged one another at the roadside.
God was indeed looking out for us that day, and we had learned a valuable lesson.
o
