We set off from Miranda's as the sun rose as we had a day's drive to the car ferry in Le Havre. We bit the bullet and took the autoroute the whole way,for £50 you get an empty road at this time of year and chaos around Paris where the road is free and chockablock. However the sun shone and the trees got more autumnal looking as we headed north. We quite like Le Havre despite all its concrete and have spent happy times here in the past with business and community events as the city is twinned with Southampton. On this occasion we had no time to spare and we were loaded onto the ship quite quickly. this was the ship we should have been on last week so we were surprised to be loaded up onto an open air car deck. not many facilities but quite acceptable for a 41/2 hour crossing.