We have invested our winter fuel allowance in the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen, which takes 6 hrs.   The weather has been very wet and windy so we have been praying for some better weather and as luck would have it, today seems to be a fair window in a week of bad weather.
This BF crossing suits us because we live so near to Portsmouth, and cuts down on the driving.

  Having paid  £277 for the return crossing, we were disappointed that the ferry seemed grubby and in some places very smelly.  The worst thing was that all the way across we were cold We sat ( briefly) in one of the lounges and it even had the air conditioning blowing cold air!
This ferry experience compared very badly with the Colorline ferry we caught from Norway to Denmark last summer.

We arrived at Caen at 9.30pm and instead of stopping overnight at Les Pommiers , we drove around the ring road and on to the A84 free motorway to Rennes, coming off at J43 to the MH Aire in the village of Villers-Bocage.   This Aire takes 3 MH's and there were 2 there already. This was very easy to find, and we arrived at 10.30 ( French time) just as it started to rain!      
It rained very heavily all night and I could hear it even with my ear plugs in !
  
 
Money spent today - Nothing!