Unfortunately, the flat-out scramble to make it to the ferry (never let someone who's just come off a week of nights and been awake around 24 hours calculate how long you need to get to a ferry) killed the gearbox. Leaving the ferry was embaressingly loud, and about 100 miles later all the gears developed a 'screech' which about 5 miles later (we were trying to limp to our accommodation) turned nastier...and we had a relaxing rest at outside a pub while I made wimpering noises.
But before that happened I got one nice photo
And I can love my minor, because she got us to the ferry despite all the abuse en-route*. I also want to say, the AA rocked. They got us a car, recovery (who advised us that getting her repaired would be difficult in his own inimitable way... "no one'll touch that pile of junk round here"), got us a flight home and a car to get us back from the airport...
So I actually feel like recommending AA european recovery (I'll feel more like it when Rebecca's back on the drive tomorrow morning...).
....Unfortunately I'm *still* waiting for the replacement gearbox to come back from the engineer (who is apparently 'waiting for one part').
* I did spend the entire rest of the holiday complaining about the rental ford focus.
