it's 4am

i'm hungry and thirsty but otherwise pretty good feeling... except the 39 degrees fever

what the fuck was that

It’s not the customs paperwork nightmare, it’s not anything that could be traced back to Brexit, no no, it’s because they’re down a ship.

A ship. ONE SHIP. On the Dover-Calais route.

First of all, that’s normal. Literally routine. Ships need to be serviced, I think the rule is every two years for cargo ships. So when you have several ships per route, chances are, once or twice a year, one of them has to go off to the dry dock for a bit. And they usually do it around this time, in winter, when there’s less traffic, no tourists, etc. So this literally happens every year.

It does not usually cause miles of queues and hours of delays FOR WEEKS.  Because first of all, ferry companies own many ships, so if one needs to be dry-docked and they need a replacement they just bring in one from a route that’s currently not as busy.

And secondly... there are SO many sailings on that route. I don’t know how many ships there are total, but it’s a lot. There are so many sailings that even if you just miss your boat, you’re usually waiting less than an hour for the next one. Every single experience I’ve had in Dover or Calais this time of year can be described as “super chill”.

Also: the company that’s currently “refurbishing” a ship just added two new ships to that route in November. So it’s a bit weird that there’s all these massive delays now that they have 1 less ship, but in November, when they had 2 less ships, everything was fine. WEIRD.

Also: every truck driver I’ve seen talking about this is talking about the hours-long delay in getting their customs papers processed.

Also: by all accounts the ferries that are crossing the channel currently aren’t even fully loaded (which again is normal for this time of year), and you’d think if it was a capacity problem they’d at least be using all the spaces they have.

It’s just SO WEIRD that this one refurbishing is causing such a massive unusual and unprecedented delay even though it’s something that happens every year and doesn’t usually cause any problems at all, at the same time that the new Brexit-related deadline passed and all this new customs red tape came in.

But it is definitely nothing whatsoever to do with that deadline or the fact that it means ridiculous amounts of paperwork now has to be a) filled out and b) checked and processed. Absolutely not. Inconceivable. It’s because we’re down one ship. On the CHANNEL.