After just three weeks in the UK it was time to return home to Berlin.
We packed the car to bursting point with all kinds of goodies such as Tetley tea bags, really nice gluten-free bread and biscuits from Waitrose and various other necessities unavailable in Germany and set off at silly-o'clock one morning.
Our first stop was, of course, the Channel Tunnel where we managed to get an earlier train than the one we'd booked. I love this option! It makes perfect sense. You have to allow for potential traffic jams when you factor in your departure time, but if you make it around the M25 without incident it's wonderful to be able to catch an earlier train.
We had time to get enormous cups of coffee to go and off we went.
It's basically the reverse of the journey I mentioned here, but without the nice stops. We do it all in one go, with a small handful of comfort stops at service stations to let Kita stretch and drink.
Some of those service stations are quite an eye opener. At one, there was a massive field surrounded by a small woodland. It looked a perfect spot to take Kita for a decent walk. This field was some distance away from the shop and conveniences, and very quickly it became obvious that the trees were used as a toileting area for humans. The stench was appalling. And not only toilets - used condoms were littered everywhere. Ugh.
Unfortunately, there were lots of roadworks on the Autobahns so our journey wasn't as easy as before and we arrived home late at night and totally exhausted.
It took nearly 16 hours.
And we are not going to do it again.