Sunday 1 May

It’s May Day in France and it’s a public holiday.  We have pre-booked a taxi to collect the four of us from the boat base to deliver us to Beziers railway station for our 9.50am train to Bordeaux with a transfer to a second train to Bergerac.  From there we take a taxi to Bergerac airport to collect our Hertz car and embark on a drive which we think is less than an hour to Les Couges, a house belonging to old friends where Cherrie and I will reside for the next three weeks.  The McDonalds leave us next week to go to Spain.  We expect to arrive there about 6pm and mindful that nothing is open on a Sunday in France, let alone on a public holiday, we carry supper supplies with us.

We arrive at the station on time and our train is listed on the board with the scheduled departure time.  However, next to it was a word we don’t recognise.  Di and I queue for nearly half an hour to get to the one open window in the ticket office and when we are finally attended to it doesn’t take long to learn that the unrecognisable word means that the train has been cancelled.  There is another one in 3 hours time and we can reserve seats on that one if we wish.  We join the others to confer.  After discussing several options we decide to take the later trains and overnight in Bergerac, delaying the collection of the rental car until tomorrow morning.  Cherrie fires up her computer to change the Hertz booking, I fire mine up to find accommodation while Garry and Di go back to the ticket counter.  Tickets sorted, car sorted, hotel sorted.  Cherrie turns to the luggage, sitting right next to us, and discovers her handbag/backpack has been stolen.  From right under our noses.  Passport, our holiday cash, phone, jewellery, credit cards, drivers licence, camera, kindle….all gone.  Makes you feel sick doesn’t it?

We eventually find someone on the railway staff to report it to and he gives us the address of the police station.  Leaving our suitcases with Di and Garry, Cherrie and I take a 10 minute drive in a taxi to the Hotel De Police.  It’s locked.   It is a public holiday, and a Sunday to boot.  But surely the cop shop is open?  We press the button on the wall outside and it seems that the Pharmacist answers.  I don’t speak French, but I do understand the word “Pharmacie”.  He does not understand my perfectly clear phrase “Police au Gendarmes sil vous plait” and hangs up.  We try the door again, to no avail, so give up and walk away.  We see a helpful looking man, “Police?” we say.  He points us to the Hotel De Police.  “Non, ferme” I say.  “Non, ouvre” he says.  Of course, I argue and leads us to the locked door, just as someone leaves the button in the wall and is buzzed in.  We see our friend mouth “told you so” in French and we wave our thanks to him and gate crash the open door. We are met by a plain clothes female police officer with a very large hand gun on her hip.  Fortunately she speaks enough English to understand what we want to report and asks us to wait, whilst she escorts the legal intruder through another locked door.  We wait.  And wait.  I use the time to ring American Express who are absolutely wonderful and immediately cancel Cherrie’s card and also speak to the insurance company and transfer me through.  Wow, that Amex Platinum card really came into its own.  Without even asking, our insurance claim is now lodged and Amex and Ace Insurance couldn’t have been more helpful.  Thanks Amex.  Eventually someone opens a hatch in the wall and gives Cherrie a four page form to fill out.  She does and we wait longer.  Then the Brigadier in charge of the station, with a similarly large hand gun on his hip, escorts us backstage, through the staff cafeteria and into his office.  He speaks a little English and all messages get through.  He completes the details on his computer, has Cherrie sign everything, and gives us copies.  When I ask if he can call us a taxi he kindly tries but clearly the public holiday is in the way.  So, he arranges for another female officer, in plain clothes but with a big gun to walk us out the back door, through the car park, up the road, around the corner and to a taxi rank.  How kind they all are.

We get back to the station by 12.15pm and board our train at 12.45.  Meanwhile we speak to Visa and Telstra and cancel those.  We will call the Australian Embassy tomorrow.  We realise that without her licence, Cherrie won’t be able to drive a Hertz car?  For the next week the driving can be shared with Garry and Di but once they go at the end of the week, then it’s up to me.  Just as well I like driving.  Just not on the wrong side of the road.

Cherrie is particularly concerned about all the information which her stolen phone carries, and the possibility of identity theft.  This is a very real concern and one which troubles her.

We finally board our train and along the way a rapid fire announcement comes through.  Our resident interpreter, Diane, who is brilliant at her petite peu French, in a perfect accent (“it’s just like acting” she says), at understands enough of the commentary to ascertain that we are running behind schedule.  We seek the advice of the 50 something woman sitting opposite.  This woman is dressed in a combination of lemon yellow and hot pink, and that includes her hair.  She has clearly cultivated a ‘look’, wears high heeled ankle boots, hot pink leggings, lemon top, gold earrings nearly the size of our boat, a face which has not avoided cosmetic surgery, shoulder   length blonde hair which has forgotten its natural colour, all topped off with a bracelet of hot pink leather and gold chain which conveniently houses her mobile phone.  Which has not stopped ringing or beeping long enough for her to top up the lippy.  She asks us something, without moving a single facial muscle, and when Di responds that we are Australian she visibly recoils.  When we ask her what time we are now due into Bordeaux, she spits something French at us and returns to her phone.  She then ignores any further pleas from us.  Fortunately we find another passenger who speaks no English but is very helpful and points to 3 minutes to 6 on my watch.  That leaves us 5 minutes to transfer to our Bergerac train, once we arrive in Bordeaux.  That’s tight, what with getting luggage out of the racks, off the train, down the steps, finding the next platform, dragging the cases up the steps and then onto the train.  But with what we have endured today we can do it.

We actually get into Bordeaux at 3 minutes to 5, an hour earlier than our helpful fellow passenger suggested and so we have plenty of time for the transfer to our three carriage train to Bergerac.  We have paid for 1^st class tickets but there is no such thing on this train, so we grab whatever seats we can and endure our 90 minute trip.  We arrive in Bergerac on time at 7.30pm but of course there is no taxi.  Fortunately there is a board with the taxi number on it, we ring and about 20 minutes later it arrives and delivers us to our hotel in the middle of nowhere, but only 5 minutes from the airport where we will collect our car in the morning.  The hotel has a bistro attached and we eat there.

In deference to the dreadful day, we knock back two bottles of vin rouge.

Monday 2 May

We breakfast in the hotel and get back to our room to ring the Australian Embassy in Paris about the passport before heading off to collect the car.  Their answer machine tells us that they are closed until Wednesday for a public holiday.  We suspect this message is a week old and refers to Anzac Day.  However repeated attempts fail to rouse anyone.  We use my phone to try to ring DFAT in Canberra, an option offered on the Embassy message.  However my French SIM card won’t ring Australia.  We remove that SIM, insert my Australian SIM and try again.  But I can’t get signal.  We give up, reinsert the French SIM only to find that it is now locked and requires a password.  Which we don’t have.  Today’s not started well.

We four take the taxi to Hertz and collect our car.  As we suspected, Cherrie can’t drive without her licence.  We decide to go straight to the villa and worry about shopping later.    I drive, keeping to the right, and manage to arrive at the villa, 45 minutes later intact.  It was the right decision to come straight here because this place is just gorgeous and will be good for our bruised souls.

We all celebrate the washing machine which gets a good workout.  Until now,  since New York, we have hand washed only.  We use the hand basin but Garry carries an amusing device called the Scrubber Washer.  Here’s an unauthorised photo of this cunning device  in use, which involves the user inserting the soiled clothing in the bag which has the sole of a Dr Scholl sandal attached to one interior side, adding water and detergent, sealing the ziplock and kneading it all like dough.  Empty the contents, rinse the clothes and you have much the same result as doing it all in the sink like most people.

There’s one born every minute…..

Di and Garry drive into town to shop while Cherrie and I start the onerous business of sorting the reporting of the stolen items and securing her identity by cancelling passwords etc.   Fortunately there is a landline here which we use and Cherrie gets onto Canberra who say the Paris Embassy is not closed and can’t explain the answer machine.  However, they deal with her issue and take down her details.  She will collect a new passport when we are in Paris.   I manage to find an English speaking person at the mobile phone company who gives me the factory setting of the password and my phone is back in business.

More soon, hopefully with photos taken with my phone.  It’s our only option!