Categories: life-in-general
Tags: Village Life
Date: 11 August 2011 21:29:13
As I mentioned a while back, our Citroen C4 died on me, rather inconveniently, on my way to a lesson, down in Clermont Ferrand. I had to call out a tow truck (thankfully on the insurance) but after a few days (weeks) the Garagiste told us that the car was dead: it needed a new engine, some other garage (and we think we know which, but have no way of proving it) did a botched job on a repair, and this finally meant that the engine was kaput.
Our good friend Jean came with his trusty 4x4 and a trailer borrowed from the local garage (who, bless them, wouldn't take any money) and drove our car back to St Just, where it sits, going nowhere for the moment, up at L'Allée (the hamlet where Jean lives and where Steve & Cathy have their second home). Mr D plans to put it on E-Bay where hopefully someone who has a C4 engine but no C4 will see it and want to buy it.
We decided to buy a second hand car in the UK, as cars there are about half the price of second hand cars here. There'll be the minor inconvenienceof it being right hand drive, but as most of the driving it does is motorway driving, I doubt it will make much difference. Car parking where you have to take a ticket won't be easy when there's only the driver, but for the Péage on the motorway we have a box which is read as you go through. Steve (who is a Garagiste in the UK) has been enormously helpful, and Mr D has waded through listings of many, many cars. Yesterday we heard that he'd got us a Honda Civic. Mr D had already booked his flights to go over to collect it, so he was quite relieved that there's a car to collect! I took him to the airport today, and I've just received a text from him reading: "Here safely on time. Been for a curry. The car is great." (You should know that one of the things we really miss here is a good restaurant curry. Every time we go to the UK it is imperative that we go out for at least one curry!)
So, while Mr D is scoffing curry and driving our new car round the country (and going to Tesco to buy all the things on my shopping list, which included Tunnocks caramel wafers, baked beans and naan bread) I'm home alone with the cats.
Driving back from the airport was enjoyable. Instead of hacking down the motorway as I usually do after work, I took the Route Nationale It was a sunny day, and I was on a road I didn't know, going at a leisurely pace (in the car we've borrowed you don't really have much choice BUT to go at a leisurely pace!) I really felt like I was on holiday! I really enjoyed myself. I called in at Carrefour on the way back and I've bought a couple of books to use with my students next year. One, which I thought was a straight story book, seems to be more complicated than that, with instructions to go to different chapters/pages depending on whether your grammar is correct! I may need to study it carefully!
And yesterday I did a 40 km ride. It was, at the beginning, a total nightmare. For the first 25 km I had nothing in my legs. I wobbled up a hill at 6 kph - a hill I've done before at double the speed (still not fast, but hey! it's not too bad!) - and at times I was almost in tears. But when, at 10 km from home, Odette turned left instead of right I swore quite vehemently, as I knew that meant more Up and at least an extra 5 km. But I finally found a bit of something in my legs, and I really enjoyed the final 15 km or so. I've only got 63 km to go. I'm wondering about doing 999 km and waiting till we know Richard is safe before doing the final 1 km, but that won't really be practical, as I'm planning on carrying on cycling (I think) after I've completed the 1,000 km - at least until the Gentleman (a race) in September ( see here for my post about last year's Gentlemen)
Anyway. It's getting late. I'm off to bed.