Meant to Be

Jul 30, 2010 by cafebebemama

There are some things in life that are meant to be. I believe that I was meant to be with my husband. We found each other across an ocean thanks to lovely, yet bizarre circumstances. We had chatted on the phone for a few months before we met for the first time at Luton Airport. We had an amazing weekend in Paris a couple of weeks later and then the following week I made my first crossing on Brittany Ferries from Ouistreham to Portsmouth to spend another weekend with Mark. In total I ended up making 6 return crossings from Ouistreham to Portsmouth from February to May…all worth it, most definitely.

For those of you who don’t know, I was studying French at the University of Caen in Normandy in the winter & spring of 2005. Thursday February 24, 2005 was the night I was to make my first crossing of the English Channel. I was quite excited as I had never been on a ferry before. I made my travel arrangements online and booked my ticket for an overnight crossing leaving at 11:30pm on Thursday night. I would spend the weekend in England and then return back to France on the Sunday night for another overnight crossing to arrive back in Caen on Monday morning before my first class of the day.

The week leading up to that Thursday had been unseasonably cold and wintery in Caen. Well, in all of France for that matter. And as with most countries that aren’t used to cold and SNOW, the change in the weather virtually paralysed the country. I laugh at this as I’m from the state of Wisconsin where temperatures of 40 degrees below zero (Farenheit) and snow drifts of 5-6 feet aren’t uncommon in the winter months. But France was struggling.

Sometime in the late morning/early afternoon of that Thursday in February it started to snow. It was a wet, heavy snow with flakes as big as a 50p piece. On normal occasions I would have been thrilled to see such snow. I love snow. I was not so excited to see it falling heavily and accumulating on the ground at a rapid pace. My ferry was scheduled for 11:30pm. I was taking a shuttle bus from the centre of Caen at 8:00pm. I began to fear for my safe arrival.

Just to be safe, I decided to head down to the centre of time with plenty of time to spare so that I could, perhaps, take an earlier bus to Ouistreham, the port town. I enlisted my good friend Sarah to help me and keep me company. We headed down in the late afternoon to take the tram downtown. We were trudging through the wet, sloppy snow, dragging my hot pink suitcase through the slush and getting wetter and wetter ourselves as the snow continued to fall. We waited at the tram stop on the University campus. And we waited. Finally, an electronic message appeared on the board above our heads…NO SERVICE. Damn.

We decided to walk downtown. Through piles of slushy, wet snow. Through muddy brown puddles. We were soaked through. I didn’t have boots or an umbrella nor did Sarah. We were laughing though. How ridiculous we looked! We arrived in the downtown area looking like drowned rats. There were a few cars around and some lights on in the shops and restaurants around but downtown Caen was looking fairly deserted. My heart started to flutter…was I going to make it to Ouistreham? Surely the bus would still run?

We found a restaurant that dared to open. “La Crepuscule”…a crepe restaurant. They opened their plastic raincover doors for us and we were enveloped by warmth and light. The amount of water that came off of us and my luggage was massive. We tried to wipe it up with little success. We ordered glorious crepes and sat at a table with a view on the square to watch for any signs of transportation. The outlook was decidedly grim. I enquired with the waitress and chef about the possibility of bus service to Ouistreham. They said it was unlikely. I started to falter. I HAD to make it to Ouistreham! I had to make it to the ferry!

As Sarah and I were lamenting and wondering, the waitress, Annabelle, came over to us. It turned out that she lived in Ouistreham and her boyfriend was coming to pick her up to take her back to Ouistreham that evening. She said that they could take me to the ferry! Sacre bleu! An angel in the form of a French waitress called Annabelle. The chef, hearing my plight and romantic story told the waitress to go early and soon the night in shinning armour known as her boyfriend turned up to drive us to Ouistreham. Sarah hugged me goodbye and trudged back through the snow to campus. I set off with two French people that I didn’t know to hopefully arrive at the ferry terminal in time to board my ferry.

The journey from Caen to Ouistreham normally takes about 30 minutes. On this night it took about 45 minutes but thankfully we arrived at the port terminal around 10:30pm with time to spare. I tried to give my saviours money for their troubles but they wouldn’t take it. They were just happy to help. I sloshed into the Ouistreham Port terminal and checked in for my first ferry crossing. As the ferry pulled away from the terminal with me on it, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I used my mobile phone to ring Mark and tell him that I had made it. He would collect me early the next morning in Portsmouth. We were both ecstatic.

Thanks to the kindness of total strangers, a weekend that would have ended up a miserable disappointment ended up being the first weekend that Mark and I said “I Love You”! All’s well that end’s well. Think about it…what were the chances that I would end up in a restaurant with a waitress who lived in the very town I needed to get to? I’m guessing slim, to none! So, you see…our life was meant to be…no matter what the weather.

This post has been belatedly written in support of Josie’s Writing Workshop at Sleep is for the Weak.