Customs

I remember going on one of my first holidays abroad with my then husband and three children. We hired a caravan near the beach on the north coast of Brittany. We had a great holiday, with the children enjoying the beach and all enjoying the inland of Brittany, with its standing stones and its versions of the Arthurian legend. We stopped to talk to one old lady in the middle of the back of beyond and she thought I came from Paris (thanks to a 6-week school exchange to Paris not that many moons before and a good ear for accents.)

I thought of this blog thanks to Dr Crippen’s recent one about lobster catching because during this holiday we came by a large spider crab. That was all right but I remember being slightly disconcerted to return to the caravan to find that it had moved!! Don’t remember how we cooked it, but someone must have told us as we wouldn’t have wasted it.

That holiday we were idly listening to the radio news and discovered that there was a dock strike about to happen. Help! My husband was self employed so there was no question of phoning work and saying “Sorry, I’m stuck in France”, so we packed up fast as you like and headed for the ferry. At customs on the English side we had “nothing to declare”, but got caught. We had a few things which we had planned to consume before leaving France, but the great crime was not a couple of bottles of wine (on which we had to pay duty) but, horror of horrors, POTATOES. Of course I understand the risk of Colorado beetle, but it was so unintentional as, if we had returned on the date planned, they would all have been finished. Oh dear, we did feel like criminals and the children became very tired and crotchety. Never mind, it certainly didn’t stop me holidaying again – but no importing of potatoes - although many bottles of wine!