Brive - Day 1 - January 18th 2017

Day 1 - Wednesday

This evening, after work, I will travelling to Portsmouth with Thomas Tasker to catch the overnight ferry to Le Havre. We then drive down to Le Mans for an overnight stop on Thursday before heading on to Brive on Friday.

The ferry we are travelling on is the Brittany Ferry 'Etretat' which is described as 'Economie Service' so I don't quite know what to expect.

The Etretat - Looks a bit small to me

Well we've booked an overnight cabin so we should get some sleep after something to eat and drink in the bar/restaurant

Cabin looks OK, with somewhere for me to finish my blog.

The reason for this visit is simple.  The dragons are playing Brive and must win with certain criteria, to proceed to knock out stages as group winners.  What dragons have to achieve is: -

 - Win with a bonus point and restrict Brive to no more than 1 losing bonus point.

 - Win without a bonus point and stop Brive getting a losing bonus point

Any other result will see Brive top the Group

The full name of the club is 'Club Atletic Briva Corresa Lemosin' and the match will be played at the Stade Amadee Domenech, which I believe is in the centre of town

The Stadium

But all this is for later, we are on our way to Portsmouth now, so the journey begins.

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Need not have worried, everything turned out OK.  The ship was nearly empty, the cabin was exactly as the picture above and we had a quiet drink in the bar while we ate the lovely sandwiches that Jan had made for us nbefore retiring for the evening.

Great nights sleep, the bed was so comfortable and with the ships movement I was soon asleep, looking forward to tomorrow.

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