Dear friends
Well, I can’t pretend it hasn’t been a while! The last few months have been somewhat exhausting - physically and mentally. The dreaded Covid has meant lots of time changing plans, reworking things, re-reworking things, going back to the original things, reworking them again… and generally running to stand still.
Rather than dwell on that (and, man alive, would it be easy to dwell on that!), let’s pretend that it didn’t happen and pick up where we left off in the hope that there will be a moment where life does, indeed, return go normal!
So, in this rollercoaster edition, I -
tell you some exciting news!
explain what happened on the EV roadtrip after we left Amiens
get back on track!
So, without further ado, pull up your favourite glass or mug, sit back and enjoy the next few minutes of life like normal!
I DID IT!
Back in 2016, I went to this place for the first time. Look! Here I am at that place!
For those of you who aren’t regular visitors, it’s the Croatian Embassy in Paris. I went to ask a question - could I apply for citizenship (my dad is Croatian)? The answer was ‘yes but’ and the conditions.
In the intervening period, lots happened - including this woman being President…
President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović was instrumental in changing the Croatian constitution to allow, for a limited period, descendants of the Croatian diaspora to reclaim their citizenship.
Just under a year ago, armed with a small mountain of paperwork, I walked in to the Croatian Embassy again to ask various questions before submitting my request.
However, Croatians are Croatians and, having gone through all the paperwork, it was decided that there was no point in my going away without submitting the application there and then. I did try (ineffectively) to explain that I didn’t think it was quite ready but the die was cast…
There is acceptance and acceptance. At that moment, I felt like they were accepting and protecting me - so I did what I was told and got on with it!
Various letters and bits of paper later, and with an incredible amount of support from the fabulous people at the Croatian Embassy, on Monday 26 July, I received a phone call to tell me that the Minister had signed the decision to grant me citizenship.
I am Croatian and I am European.
Next, the children…
Amiens to Finistere - The EV Road Trip part 3!
For those of you who haven’t seen the previous two episodes, they’re on my Substack space here and here.
We left our heroes in Amiens…
However, we had a problem!
We had stopped in Amiens, like in all of this journey, by chance. We’d had enough driving and just wanted to stop and rest and Amiens looked good.
Having found a hotel with a room (a task that was bizarrely difficult), we parked nearby on the street. But I did not really think about charging. This was a rookie error on my part but it had a happy side-effect.
After a good night’s rest, we got up and, over breakfast, decided to look for our next free charger. As luck would have it, it was under 1km away, in the centre of Amiens.
The charger in question belonged to the lovely people at Gueudet Frères of Amiens - a car place.
Their 22 kWh charger was free for an hour - which would half fill our Zoe and give us time to have a wander around town. As we already had almost 40% charge, this was ideal.
It turns out Amiens is quite spectacular - the cathedral is particularly impressive.
Having an EV gives you a good excuse to pause and explore. If we had been driving electric, I would still have had to stop but it would have meant stops at petrol stations, seeing nothing, unrestful rests and experiences missed.
However, at the moment, we realised that it was time to move on. The journey was fun but we were both missing home.
Indeed, as I’d not had enough coffee, I was getting a bit…
OK, so I shoe-horned that in but you’d not forgive me if I’d not done it!
The Road to Rouen
Next stop for us would be Rouen. Now, it goes to show how awful my geography is that I had no idea that Rouen was on the river Seine. I know, I know…
Arriving in town, we found a lovely free charger right next to the river and parked Zoe up with some new friends to get some electricity and some vitamin D while we went to explore and have lunch.
Rouen (at the risk of starting to sound like a branch of the French tourist board) is also stunning!
It’s home to the oldest auberge in France - La Couronne (founded in 1345)…
…and lots of unspoiled streets which provided welcome shade from the slightly oppressive sun…
The rest of our trip to Rouen was pretty normal. We wandered, we ate, we were joined inside the restaurant by a bird who stared at me with the sort of intent usually reserved for dogs begging for food…
However, as I was eating a bird at the time, I tried to ignore him until he realised that I was not going to share my confit de canard, so he went and pestered someone else.
Thanks to traffic around Caen, our next stop (dinner in Avranches) was two and a half hours away. This wasn’t the best leg of the trip. The roads around Caen weren’t great and I was hurtling towards public charging points that I would have to pay for. To be honest, I was even more pissy than I was when we were at Pissy!
Also, I was tired and ready to be in my own bed (as was the co-pilot).
We had been to Avranches once before - to see the Tour de France. It’s another lovely little town - peaceful and a fantastic base to see some of the best parts of northwest France.
So, when we turned into it, the weather still good, it felt good to be somewhere that I recognised.
Finding the charging points was another matter. They were hidden not where they should have been but pretty much where you would not put them and the signage was non-existent. I was in a mood again.
I was in a mood - that is, until I plugged in and realised that the charging point was free! It was game on again!
It was time for dinner and coffee.
Homeward Bound
Zoe had not skipped a beat on the entire journey and we were now within distance of home - if I wasn’t tired.
Fortunately, there was a really handy solution. Almost exactly between my bed and Avranches was a known free charging point - so I headed for it and a quick stretch of my legs. But not before I recorded a quick video for you…
We had charged, we had driven, we had collected the flies of four countries on the front of our new car…
…and we had done the whole journey for the princely sum of 13€61 - for a trip of over 1,500 km.
…and then…
The next day, after I’d arrived home, I made a mistake. I had miscalculated (for the one and only time) how much charge I would need to get to the closest free charger to my home and, therefore, to put the car into its ‘free’ cycle of charges. I had driven home hard and fast, using more energy than I had planned. So there was nothing for it… I went to the local pay charger in town and plugged in.
I charged for 17 minutes and paid 1€06 for the privilege.
That was on 21 July 2020.
Since owning the car until the end of that charge, I had paid 14€67.
21 July 2020 was the last time I paid to charge Zoe. It is now 21 August 2021 - and Zoe is having another free charge as I type!
THANK YOU!
Over the past months, some of you have supported me with coffees - and they really do have an effect beyond caffeine!
I take photos of your coffees! They’re restorative and drive me to take photos - and also keep reminding me that I need to click ‘send’ on a newsletter!
The next one will not be so far away! And it could well be from Paris.
It will also be a bit more ‘normal’ - whatever that is!
See you very soon!
James
Thanks for reading, sharing and supporting this email newsletter. I am aiming to keep them freely available. If you’d like to show your appreciation, I’d appreciate a coffee! You can get me one here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jamesmb If you don’t want to or can’t, that’s fine too! Thank you!