We had set ourselves a challenging problem: to transport the entire needs of a two-bedroom floating apartment, into a convertible sports car.
Yes: bedding, duvets and pillows for four berths; kitchen-ware for the galley; his and hers clothes for 6-months; various boat tools and kit, including our snorkelling gear for underwater snags; first-aid kits; computers, iPads, Kindles, and all the associated spares and chargers; and all to cram into the Audi.
The first miracle solution is the Rokey vacuum bag, that - with the aid of a mini-Dyson, sucked and compressed all our bedding into what now feel like thin, hard boards. The second is the "packing cube", which is a soft, cube shaped, zipped container for neatly storing all your rolled-up undies and t-shirts etc. [Thanks, Sue, for the tip.] And the third miracle solution is the soft-top, which allowed us to access and lower our bags into the two rear seats, before putting the roof back up.
It was a complex jigsaw puzzle, but now I don't know why we were worried, as we have quite a bit of space left over for our overnight bags.
We just have to keep our fingers crossed now that security don't pull us over at Portsmouth ferry terminal (like they have the last two times) and attempt to dismantle the car. Not to mention what the French Douane might want to do to is in Ouistreham! Zut!!
[Update June 16: In Portsmouth ferry terminal having just passed the safety test. Well done to Alix for collating everything we needed. Just security to negotiate now…. and in fact we just sailed straight through security unstopped]
[Update Jun 17: And cleared Douane; asked only for proof of negative test. No customs checks. The great thing is that we got our passports stamped; I think this might be the first time I have ever had my passport stamped for entry to France, but I may need to go through my old passports to verify that. So, we are now in Aubeterre, the house is fine and it is warm and very wet outside, but no horages as yet.]
