Bergerac and Bloody Bloody Trains

Our departure from Les Couges has been delayed by the man returning the dishwasher, which he took away for repairs last week.  But we finally return the car in Bergerac and check into our funny little hotel for a night.  We want to spend a day in this city before leaving regional France for the big smoke.  We eat our sandwiches, made while dishwasher reinstalled, overlooking the town square and then walk around.  As expected, another beautiful French city.

 

 We wondered at the price of that……..

And went down to the ever glorious Dordogne River.

Dinner at L’Imparfait, where we had our rushed lunch with Di and Garry recently,   gave us great service but a disappointing choice of dishes.  A significantly more limited menu than that of the luncheon one, but good food nonetheless.  Back in our room, the only means of privacy from the street, is an electric roll-a-door.  Cherrie comments that she has never slept in a car port before.

We get to the railway station 40 minutes prior to our departure for the first train to Libourne where we then change for the direct train to Paris, which gets us in at 3.30pm.  But nothing in France is easy and the trains have proven to be very unreliable.  Our train is cancelled, due to a strike.  We are offered a seat on a bus, departing here in a little under three hours, to Bordeaux where we are then offered a second class ticket (meaning nowhere to put luggage) five hours later to Paris, arriving at midnight.  We indicate that this is completely unacceptable to us and beg for an alternative.  “Ah, oui, madame”….”Tomorrow”  she says, but no guarantee that the trains will be running tomorrow.  We are offered a refund on our first class tickets with the offer to find our own way to Paris.  After much banter, we are left with no choice but to accept the first offer.  So we sit on the wooden bench in Gare Bergerac to wait 2 ½ hours for our bus to Bordeaux.  Because we have a large suitcase each, and because baggage rooms are no longer available at French railway stations (for good reason) we will have to sit with them for another five hours at Bordeaux.  Train travel in France sucks.  If you’ll pardon the obvious pun, this event rather puts Bergerac on the nose.

While we are waiting, Cherrie makes her way to the toilet.  This is on the platform and requires 40c change for entry.  She puts the coins in, the door opens, Cherrie enters, door closes but not fully and in the semi dark Cherrie hunts for the light.  She finds a button and presses it.  This releases a flood of water from all four sides, resulting in a drenched floor and a pair of drenched jeans.  Cherrie escapes the toilet, realising that because the door was not latched the computer thought she had exited and the efficient cleaning system kicked into place.  No relief for Cherrie though, if you know what I mean.

So we get on the bus, elbowed sideways by 12 year old university students but we can give as good elbow as we get and sit together.  The 55 seat bus stops at EVERY railway station between Bergerac and Bordeaux.  Now, this requires traversing narrow streets in small towns, and attempting to knock off wing mirrors like it was a national sport.  Perhaps it is, and to think it is one we could have engaged in willingly over the past weeks.

We finally get to Bordeaux. I go to the information counter to see if there is any way we can get an earlier train to Paris.  “Ah oui” I am told “no problem, there is a train in one hour and another in two hours”.  “Great” I say, can we please have two seats on the train in one hour?”  “No Madam, there are no seats available” “Then the next train please” I implore.  “No Madam, there are no seats available, but you can stand all the way if you like”.  It’s a 5 hour trip.  I don’t like.  So, we take a table at the coffee shop which has hosted us so often recently, and settle in for 5 hours.  I wonder when they will kick us out?  Train travel has not been kind to us in France and we will hesitate to do it again.

The friendly café at Gare Bordeaux is nice to us, because we keep spending money on coffee we don’t want and we sit there for 5 hours.  I have been keeping a vigilant eye on the board and notice that it seems that a new train has been added, to depart 15 minutes after our 7.30pm train.  A trip to the ticket office and a blessed English speaker confirms this is the case and finds us two first class tickets on that train.  This means we will have confirmed seats and somewhere in the carriage to store our luggage.  The train leaves on time and we arrive in Paris at midnight.  A long wait in what seems a never ending queue for a taxi, which eventually delivers us to our hotel, just as well  we had advised them earlier with regard to our late arrival.  Exhausted, after a 15 hour trip from Bergerac to Paris, we flop into bed.  At least we are here, in the city of lights.

 

We start the week, on Monday 9^th, accompanying Di and Garry to Bordeaux station in a taxi.  They depart for San Sebastian in Spain an hour before our train back to Bergerac.  We wave goodbye to them and are sad to see them go.  We have had such a fun adventure with them and they are great travelling companions.  Plus great cooks.

Our train is a direct 90 minute journey this time and we are now adept at calling for a taxi from the station to Hertz at the airport, where we take delivery of a small Renault.  Hertz accept Cherrie’s RMS print out verifying her licence details and she can now drive the car too.  Oh joy.  Back to Les Couges, where our plan is for a couple of quiet days lying low, sobering up and eating only dried crusts.  Well, figuratively speaking.

We start by spending an entire day at home on phone and computer in an attempt to sort out our insurance claims.  Cherrie has to list, in painful detail, everything in her stolen bag, down to the last safety pin.  I spend some time in communication with Amex with regard to the car insurance claim.  It seems that the wheel rims were damaged and Hertz have hit me with an obscenely high bill, which they have already charged to my Amex account.  This is one for me to deal with in an English speaking country, not here, so I decide to suck it and see.

Our Dutch neighbours, Tim and Frederike, stop their car on the way home to have a chat.  A 40 minute chat.  We first met them at the Beaumont markets last week where  Tim sells tea and Frederike sells pastries she has made and items she has crocheted.  They tell us that the tea and pastries always sell well.  I guess that means the crochet does a slow trade.  They are very friendly and keen to socialise.  We agree that they will come in for a drink one evening.

We make a trip into the nearest village, the medieval delight that is Monpazier, peruse their Thursday market and pick up a few more bread crusts for our highly unsuccessful fast.  Fortunately the village has moved forward a few centuries and the library is able to scan the insurance documents so they can be emailed to an unsympathetic and uncaring insurer back home who doesn’t even have the decency to acknowledge receipt of Cherrie’s hours of work documenting everything.  She has edited photographs of her wearing her black pearl necklace, her ears with beautiful pearl drop earrings, and an incredible amount of supporting documentation, proof of purchase, credit card statements etc, all of which has eaten into several hours of our holiday.  It’s enough to put me back onto the grog, which it does.  A day or two of abstinence is quite enough I decide.

Time to cook the pigeons, I reckon.  Having defrosted two, I spend some time faithfully following Dany Chouet’s recipe.  It looks pretty good when I serve it.  The pea puree is delicious, as are the confit onions.  As for the pigeons, well what can I say?  They are dreadful.  Tough, all carcass and no meat and perhaps undercooked, even though I gave them a little longer as suggested by the recipe if we didn’t want rare.  Such a disappointment, especially with a week-long build up. A mercy that Di and Garry weren’t here to share in my humiliation.  Two pigeons will stay in the freezer here, to be put in the hands of a more accomplished pigeon chef than I.

We hear that our friends from Australia, who own this beautiful villa and who are due to join us over the weekend, are not coming.  He has been ill and whilst recovering well simply does not feel strong enough to make the epic trip.  At least not while we are here, which is disappointing but unavoidable.  We think we might debunk earlier and head to Paris next week, rather than on the 26^th as planned.  Cherrie is feeling particularly displaced with no ID at all and is keen to get her temporary passport, which she can only do at the Australian Embassy in Paris.

On Friday we drive into Sarlat, where we had just a short time with Garry and Di on our garden tour day, the fateful car trip day.  We surmised then that this was a city worthy of a longer visit so we book accommodation for the night and drive in a leisurely manner there.  We pass through so many medieval villages, Franceis littered with them, and we stop at Beynac et Cazenac for café.

Shocking to say, I know, but we have become almost blasé about the beauty of these ancient villages.  Well, except when we have to drive through them – that’s always  a challenge for those of us attuned to driving on the correct side of the road.  It’s the off side that’s the issue, not actually driving on the right hand side.  Since Cherrie has been able to drive here, I recognise that it is probably more stressful to be the front seat passenger than the driver, as they are the ones who can see that the car is about to run off the road.

Once in Sarlat, we first drive to the railway station where I manage to make myself understood that we want to change our train tickets from Bergerac to Paris from the 26^th to the 18^th.  I feel quite proud that I achieve this, and pass over the required exchange fee of €44.  Mindful that it’s quite possible I have just been ripped off due to my shameful lack of language skills, I smile sweetly and wish the man bon journo.  It may well be a particularly bon journo for him.

We leave our car at the cheap hotel we have booked at the top of the hill and walk into this beautiful town.

We figure we can have lunch today because we’ll walk it off going back up, but we settle on a light lunch because we have booked a really good restaurant for tonight.  Enough of this fasting malarkey.   We specially chose a bistrot off the beaten track to avoid the tourist prices.  This one is also avoided by the locals, and we soon realise that’s for good reason.  We chose the plat du jour, which is coq au vin.  Literally.  And a good deal more coq than vin.  This was the oldest rooster known to man with enormous leg bones which would put a spring lamb to shame.  Still, we’ve left room for our much anticipated dinner.  When we get back outside, it’s raining.  Of course we have no wet weather gear with us.  I find a hairdressing salon which looks to be good, that is the women leaving seem to have good haircuts.  I’m overdue for a style, and luckily they can fit me in.  My hair is cut by a Frenchman who speaks excellent English.  When I complement him, he says that he lived in America for 21 years and has returned to France with his American wife, who was a French teacher prior to her recent retirement.  Their adult children have stayed in America.  I am happy with my haircut and as my long term hairdresser in Sydney is French I think that perhaps I need to stick with only French hair stylists.  The Russian who cut it in New York was, I think, trained as a hedge trimmer.  Cherrie has been wandering as best she can under cover (not in the change of ID sense, which right now she is perfectly suited for, but in the staying out of the rain sense) and has found a pair of gold knot earrings very similar to those that were amongst her stolen jewellery.  She takes me to look at them and I agree that they are lovely and so I buy them for her.  This makes me sound incredibly generous, but of course Cherrie has no means of paying for anything, poor thing.

By now the rain is so heavy that there is no way we will walk the rooster off and so I ring for a taxi to pick us up in the Rue de la Republique, by the Banque Populaire.  The taxi driver laughs at me over the phone, such is my shocking French.  He speaks perfect English, German, Dutch and Spanish, as well as French.  We warns me that he can’t get to us without a 30 minute wait which I agree to, so embarrassed am I.  It’s cold as well as wet, but we dutifully wait under the awning of the Banque and he turns up 35 minutes later and very quickly becomes our driver for the day, with an agreement that he will pick us up for dinner and again to return us at the end of the evening.

At the hotel, we make our Paris plans, which include a two day side trip to Normandy to see Saint Marlo and Mont Saint Michel, as well at the D Day landing beaches and Bayeaux. We book a hotel before we can take our apartment in Les Invalides, which we have been able to secure two days earlier.

Our taxi driver delivers us to our chosen restaurant, which is listed in the top 3 restaurants in Sarlat.  After a few days of light food, we are ready for a feast of the gastronomic kind.  It’s a 7pm booking and we are not surprised when we are the first to arrive.  And the last. It doesn’t take us long to realise that we are at Fawlty Towers and served by a young man who is the perfect combination of Basil and Manuel.  He’s all legs and all dim. The menu is completely uninspiring and there is nothing on it that we want to eat.  However, not surprisingly perhaps, we do order.  We both have the soft shell crab followed by fillet of beef for Cherrie and duck breast for me.  The crab comes cunningly disguised as chicken nuggets, but not as tasty, and the duck is almost inedible.  I have ordered pink but it arrived julienned, overcooked to a grey colour and with a nice edging of unrendered fat.  Inedible.  We get the giggles, as we truly had expected a good meal in a good restaurant, our last hurrah before Paris where we don’t expect to be able to indulge in gastronomie.  The only person to share in the joke is Manuel and it seems cruel to include him, as he is trying so hard.  Our mirth increases when I return from a visit to the loo and insist that Cherrie check it out.  Here’s why

And here’s a photo of the restaurant when we leave it at 8.40pm

 On Saturday we had planned to visit the famed Sarlat markets but it is raining again, we have not bought wet weather gear with us and anyway we can’t find anywhere to park the car for love nor money.  So we drive back to Les Couges, stopping at a little village on the way to buy baguette and a lamb shoulder to slow cook for tonight, and the remainder of our nights here.  It’s nice to be ‘home’ again, driving through very pretty country to arrive at our place in the country, surrounded by fields and vegetable gardens lovingly tendered by their owners, the plentiful roses and wisteria which seemingly grow everywhere.

 After two weeks here in the Dordogne, and our time in the Loire, Languedoc and right down the Canal du Midi, we both have a really good understanding of the French countryside, its beauty and diversity.

My slow cooked lamb with garlic, anchovies and thyme is more successful than the rubber pigeon and we enjoy a game of vigorous ping pong prior to tucking in.

We have made contact with Jan, a friend of our friend Gil, and she has suggested that we meet up today, Sunday, at a speciality plant show at L’Abbaye Nouvelle near Gourdon in the Lot, a neighbouring district to the Dordogne. It’s a little over an hour’s drive, on a different route again and again through beautiful country. We park on the side of the road and walk to the Abbey and the fair

A fabulous collection of plants, displayed and for sale by their proud growers.  Many of the plants were recognisable to Cherrie but most notable was the wide variety of figs and lavenders.

It was a beautiful day, the first sun we have seen (and felt) in a few days and perfect for this sort of outing.  Jan and her husband Philippe were entertaining at a friends house on top of the hill just above the Abbey and we were invited up there for a drink, an invitation we readily accepted.  It turned out to be an ex-pats party – full of English, Australian and Kiwis, all living in this area and all very friendly and charming.  We spent another couple of hours in this convivial company before embarking on the drive home, where we now are.

Tomorrow, Monday, is another public holiday, the 4^th this month.  We will spend it in a leisurely manner, cleaning the house and packing for Paris.  Tomorrow evening Tim and Frederike and their son Boris will join us for a drink.  And then to gay Paris…..

But Bordeaux beckons

Friday 6 May 2016

We played 500 last night and had a good laugh.  Wins all round.

Up early this morning in naïve anticipation that Hertz will ring with news of a new car waiting for us and a taxi on the way to deliver us to it.  I said naïve didn’t I?  At 9.30am I ring Hertz and get through amazingly quickly – only 3 minutes wait this time.   I am told that they have not got us a car yet because the office does not open until 9am.  When I point out that it is already 9.30am she acknowledges that she will check on progress, which she does and reports that they have not yet been able to find a car for us.  “Please wait, I will ring back”.  We wait.  And wait.  At 10.30am I ring back.  “Please wait, I will ring back”.  We settle in for a long wait.  Which was sensible.  To save you the agony of the wait, we finally get word that they have found a car for us at Bergerac Airport and that a taxi will collect us in 45 minutes.  About 45 minutes later, now 11.30am, we receive a telephone call from our ‘chauffer’ who says he will be with us in about 45 minutes but he doesn’t know how to get to us.  We agree that we will walk the 1km into Lolme and meet him there.  Lolme consists of a church, and indeed exactly 45 minutes later our taxi pulls up next to the church and in we pile.  Of course, the Hertz office will now be closed for lunch so Garry suggests that we go to lunch at a restaurant he and Di discovered when they were last in Bergerac three years ago, L’Imparfait, like we need more food.  He rings and books a table for 1.30pm and we have a delightful lunch, but it was a shame to have to hurry in this lovely restaurant, clearly one designed for a long and leisurely experience.  The restaurant calls us a taxi at 3pm and the same driver turns up and takes us to Hertz.  Which is closed.

But, the Europcar operator next door points us to the carpark, where we find the detailer who opens the office, makes some phone calls for instructions, gives us an incident report to complete with regard to the previous car, and then finally gives us the keys to our new car, which is clearly a self-cleaning model, called a Duster.  We need to be home by 5.30pm in order to freshen up and leave at 6pm to drive to Dany and Trish’s.  But, we need to collect the pigeons en route.  We pull up at the Boucherie in Beaumont du Perigord at 4.30pm and Di and Garry run in to do the explaining and make the purchase while I keep the motor running in my illegal parking spot,  although that seems to make me more of a local.  A few minutes later the pigeons are in the car, as are my travelling McDonald’s and we continue the drive to the Supermarche, as our provisions are dwindling at home.  We may need dinner tonight, although we suspect that Dany and Trish will have prepared enough nibblies to keep us going.  We get home at 5.30pm, do a quick turnaround and pull out at 6pm for our 6.30pm drinks.  Their house, which they have lived in for 12 years, is a magnificent 15^th Century mansion with grand rooms and lovely interior colour scheme, as would be expected by anyone who remembers Cleopatra at Blackheath.  The garden, too, is expansive with beautiful plantings and lovely swimming pool, which they expect to open for the summer in about 2 weeks.  They don’t have a vegetable garden, “why would we when we can get everything we want direct from the grower at the market?”  They grow only herbs.

We enjoy a glass of rose, although as the driver I abstain, and a couple of savoury biscuits with spread.  Once they learn that we are going to Bordeaux tomorrow and Di and Garry are going onto the Spain we get lots of tips where to eat.  There’s that assumption again, that we need to eat more!  At 8.30pm I announce that I wish to leave now, in order not to drive in the dark.  It’s still light until about 9.15pm, by which time we are home and I am whipping up a risotto, which we really don’t need but this eating lark is a hard habit to break.  In true French style it is after 10 when we sit down to eat, and once we have cleaned up we head straight for bed and our early start tomorrow, well early start French style.

Saturday 7 May

Our train to Bordeaux leaves Bergerac at 10.30am and we need to refill the car, return it to Hertz at the airport and take a taxi to the train station.  We leave the house at 7.45am, Garry and Di for the last time, and head for the airport.  We pull into the supermarket for fuel but the machine won’t accept either of my credit cards. We continue onto the airport and find a fuel station which actually has a human attendant and refuel with no problem.  We return the car keys, call a cab and are at the station an hour before the train.  A cup of coffee on the street opposite fills in enough time and we take an uneventful ride on the first train from Bergerac to Libourne, where we change for our train to Bordeaux.  However we are sent outside to a bus.  Not sure why, but we are bussing it to Bordeaux rather than train.  No problem, it’s a comfortable bus and we have a different view than that from the train.  We alight the bus at Gare Bordeaux which is surrounded by crime scene tape, as well as Police and Civil Protection officers.  There has been a bomb scare, hence the closure of the station, but it appears to have been a false alarm.  I guess France is ultra-sensitive now to the threat of terrorist attacks.  Our taxi drops us at our hotel right in the centre of Bordeaux, we dump our bags and head off on foot.  Oh my, what a gloriously beautiful city this is.

 Di and Garry go to the Musee Beaux Arts while Cherrie and I show our uncultured streak by walking down to the River Garonne.  We discover the markets full of the most wonderful French provincial furniture and mentally furnish our house and garden ten times over. Fabulous stuff.   The ritual of luncheon is alive and well at these markets and the stall holders are all sitting down at whatever dining tables they happen to have for sale today, with family and friends and partaking in hot meals with wine.   It’s a joy to behold.

We spend some hours in this area, wandering the markets which include trees, flowers and seedlings.

We could have bought any number of old, very old, olive trees

some cloud pruned, as well as some old grape vines, but we surmised we probably wouldn’t get them on the plane home

We wandered up the riverfront boulevard and revelled in watching children play on the water mirror, a tiled wet area where bare feet can kick up water and provide a fun frolic.  Every 30 minutes it is sprayed with a light mist from below, resulting in delighted shrieks.

The streets are teeming with people but that cannot deter from the beauty of this city.

Even the electric trams are sleek, quiet and have no advertising on them.

 And the chocolates are a work of art

Back at the hotel, we meet Garry and Di for a glass of wine at 6.30pm, a complimentary service provided by the hotel, before an hour later walking a short distance up the road to Le Chapon Fin, a renowned Bordeaux restaurant which opened in the 18^th Century and which is highly recommended by Michelin.  We booked for this months ago and have decided that tonight caution goes out the window and we eat, drink and be merry.  Although it might be noted by the keen observer of this blog that restraint is not a characteristic which has featured widely recently.

We have the most fabulous night.  This is true theatre as well as fine food.  Great service, much made of the appertif champagne cart, the decanting of the wine, the service of the food but all without pretension.  We order our entrée, main and cheese but resist the invitation to order dessert. Until we have finished our cheeses.  It is then that we order our dessert, which we all agree the next day was a mistake.  We should have left it with the cheese.  We don’t need dessert and frankly it was too much.  We just got carried away by the occasion, and what an occasion it was.  A fabulous night, with 3 1/2 hours of pure indulgence.

Sunday 8 May

Today is another French public holiday.  Ascension Day, although we all agree that for us it is Expansion Day.  We walk down to the river this morning for….you guessed it….the food markets.  Just for a window shop.  We can’t get enough of these markets, with their wide selection of meats, fish, vegetables, charcuterie, cheeses.  We completely understand Dany and Trish’s decision to buy from the markets rather than grow their own.  We walk further up the river, and threw these beautiful streets, far less busy today.  This is a clean, very cared for city, which we are enjoying very much.  We have a light lunch in a square which seems to be entirely Spanish, and then we separate.  Garry and Di in one direction, which we covered yesterday, and we in another.  We all even manage an afternoon siesta, before once again meeting for the complimentary pre-dinner wine. We walk to a Brasserie recommended by Dany but all four of us have capitulated and confess to being fooded out.  This might cause a seismic shift in the earth, but there, we have fessed up.  One course only, not finished by anyone, and back to the hotel for an early night.

Tomorrow we bid farewell to the McDonalds who take their train to Spain whilst we take ours in the opposite direction to Bergerac, and to face Hertz and the enormous repair bill they have sent us.

Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 May

This house, Les Couges, is just gorgeous.

  It’s casual and comfortable and perfect for our holiday.  On Tuesday morning we drive into nearby Beaumont du Perigord, where we peruse the market place.  Our purchase of the olives nearly breaks the bank.  They are lovely olives though and I am saving the stones because I am sure once I clean them I will discover gold.  We do some basic shopping, find a bouchier with an array of such enticing meats that we are seen to drool.  Eventually we buy rabbit for tonight, which Garry and Di will cook, and order four pigeons to collect tomorrow.  I have found a recipe I want to try out on the guinea pigs here (although I won’t serve guinea pig on this occasion) and it’s not that easy to find pigeon in Australia, unless you happen to be driving recklessly through Hyde Park.  After a coffee in the square, we return home to devour the remainder of last night’s slow cooked lamb, courtesy of these wonderful cooks we are sharing this holiday with.  Thanks, Di and Garry.

We then head out again, this time to the local town Monpazier, and what a lovely town it is.  One of the ‘plus beaux villages de France’, it is old.  In fact it was founded in 1284 by England’s King Edward 1 and remains pretty much unchanged since then.

 We managed to find an English speaking woman in the little library who printed out a driver licence receipt which Cherrie has downloaded from the RMA website, which we hope might allow her to drive in France.

Tonight our personal chefs create a wonderful rabbit dish with tomato and olives.  How fabulous to have such talent in house.

Wednesday 4 May

Today we decide to do some gardens.  We plan our day carefully around picking up the pigeons and decide that we will do the gardens first and then come home via Beaumont and the Boucherie.  So, we head out early and drive the one hour to Sarlat, a beautiful drive through this glorious countryside.  It’s so pretty, and varies between valleys, hills and flat, unlike the Loire and Languedoc, both of which don’t vary much.  We go drive through the medieval town of Sarlat to the gardens of Marqueyssac, which we are told are spectacular.  Such a disappointment.  They are ALL box hedges, nothing else, trimmed into topiary.  But rather in need of a trim, actually.  A little bit scruffy.  And you know what box smells like don’t you?  Garry put his nose to one hedge and sniffed, as if it were a glass of wine.  “Mmm, Persian”, “Ah, Manx”, “Tabby”, “Tom” etc.  A perfect description.  Built basically as a park designed for walking, it does provide spectacular views of the Dordogne valley and river.  But we find the plantings and the topiary unimaginative and disappointing.

We retreat to Sarlat for lunch and find a beautiful little restaurant in a garden courtyard which does us nicely.  After lunch we head to our second and final garden for the day, Eyrignac Manor Garden another 3o minutes away.  This private garden does not disappoint, and whilst it too has lots of topiary they are set within mass plantings of yew, hornbeam, and more box but it is truly beautiful.

We happily spend a couple of hours wandering around here, Cherrie snapping away on my inadequate iphone, well compared to her beautiful Sony camera which some thief is now enjoying, until we decide that we’d better make tracks in order to reach the pigeons in time.

Our trusty in-car GPS leads us on a curious scenic route towards Beaumont.  We know that it is an hours drive but the butcher doesn’t close until 7pm so we’re not in a screaming hurry.  Which is clearly evident to the cars behind us, driven by impatient Frenchmen who have no time for our hesitation at roundabouts or us pulling over on roads too narrow to bear that description when confronted with an oncoming wide truck. However, we are undeterred and drive carefully through a number of very pretty towns.  We come unstuck in one however, and it’s not even pretty.  We hit something on the road that makes a frightful noise.  We pull up, half on the pavement in order to make as little impact on traffic as possible.  This is a pretty busy road, and so we quick thinkers even turn on the hazard lights. We all alight, and yes, there is it.  A flat tyre at the back.  Then we look to the front.  Another flat tyre.  Picture this if you will.  Two flat tyres, 5.15pm, paperwork for the rental car back at the house, busy road which we have now rendered single lane and four pigeons awaiting, which will not find their way to our home.  Trust me, it’s not a good look.    Garry’s phone is at 50%, mine at 30%, Di’s doesn’t work in France and Cherrie’s is in the hands of the same thief who is currently taking photos of his bastard children with her camera.  An internet hunt on my rapidly weakening phone reveals a  number for France Hertz.  I use Garry’s phone to ring but predictably get a recorded message and Hertz France has the temerity to speak in French.  I have no idea what they are saying.  I hang up and keep dialing, in the hope that the message will miraculously translate itself into English.  Perhaps unsurprisingly it does not.  Eventually a man approaches us. Ah, at last help is here we think.  Wrong.  He speaks no English at all.  I show him my Hertz Gold card in the hope that he can listen to the recorded message on the phone and at least advise them that we are in trouble and need to speak to someone in English.  Wrong again.  He has no idea what I am saying, thinks my member number is a phone number and that Christine Dunstan is the model of the car.  Well, I can see why I might be mistaken for a tank but this was no time for self reflection.  It’s getting more evident by the minute that this man cannot help us, until his daughter, maybe 7 years old, makes a suggestion to which he responds positively and off they head.  Did she suggest a beer, or dinner?  We are not sure but watch them head across the road, now quite congested thanks to us.  I continue the battle of the telephones, ringing every number I can find for Hertz, without any success at all.  By now Garry’s phone charge has equalled mine at 30%.  A few minutes later a man approaches us, and in the voice of an angel says “I believe you might need some help” He’s an Englishman!  He uses Garry’s phone, rings the Hertz number I give him, which of course is central reservations, but in his perfect French he turns on the charm and finds the number of the Hertz assistance line.  He rings that for us, listens to the message and presses 2, which means that I will speak to someone in English. Someone who understands what I am saying and will speak back to me in English.  Of course, the wait is interminable during which time we bond with our angel, David, and establish that we are probably 45 minutes from Les Couges.  Eventually, after literally 12 minutes, I do indeed get onto someone, explain the situation and then try to tell her where we are.  David fulfils that bit expertly, Miss Hertz tells me she will dispatch help and that I should ring her back once help comes.  We are relieved but uncertain what form this help will take.  David pops home and then returns to us with a list of taxi numbers if we need them.  He has even gone to the trouble of ringing some of the taxis himself, but they have all said that as tomorrow is a public holiday they can’t possibly take a fare tonight.  Go figure.  He has also spoken to a friend of his, explained the situation, and thinks that his friend may be able to drive us later if we are prepared to wait.  Such kindness.  Our French friend rejoins the party and everyone thinks we should move the car further up the road so that it can revert to two lanes.  This doesn’t seem a good idea to me as I fear that any movement will damage the wheel rims.  Lots of animated discussion about the pros of reopening the road vs the cons of moving the car until I pull rank and say that the contract is in my name and the car stays here.  Everyone steps back!  David then heads off to do some shopping and says he will pop by later to check up on us. Realising that we are not going to be consuming pigeon any time soon Di and Cherrie head off to a supermarket for emergency supplies for tonight and all day tomorrow – nothing open on a public holiday in France. 50 minutes later a huge tow truck pulls up.  Here is our assistance.  He looks at the tyres and shakes his head in some amusement.  He indicates that I should ring Hertz back and while I do, he, seemingly without effort, lowers the tray on his truck, carefully drives our car onto it, winches it up, raises the tray.  All one within 5 minutes.

Now he waits with us until Hertz answer – another 12 minutes at least.  He talks to them, tells us that we should wait at the Tabac up the road which is much more comfortable and drives off with a jaunty wave.  Hertz will organise a replacement car for us.  Tonight.  She will ring me back, on Garry’s phone.  My phone by now is down to 18% and we turn it off.   We head up the road, with two bags of our coats etc from the car and our groceries, and have a mineral water while we wait for Hertz to ring back with car details.  And wait, and wait.  Then I notice a missed call on Garry’s phone.  He curses that the phone has been problematic for ages and he never hears it ring.  The ‘do not disturb’ is on!  Get rid of that and ring Hertz back.  This wait is for 18 minutes.  They can’t get us a car tonight.  But they will get us a cab, that’s all included in our Amex insurance.  Oh joy to Amex again.  They know the pick up address, thanks to David, but the drop off address at Les Couges is another matter.  There is no address.  “Just get us to Lolme” I say “and we will direct the driver from there”.  “There is no place called Lolme” she says.  Banter between she and me goes on for a long time.  I try very hard to remain calm.   Meanwhile the others return to our original position down the road for fear that the taxi might arrive and we not be there, whilst I negotiate my way around this issue.  Garry’s phone is down to 12%, it’s now 8.15pm and I start to become seriously concerned that we might have to find David’s friend to drive us back.  But no, we have to stick with the insurance conditions which are that Hertz provide the taxi.  “My phone is going to be without charge very soon” I say “please let us direct the taxi”.  Somehow my pleas are heard and she says that a taxi will be here in 20-30 minutes.  Phew.  A text message comes through pretty quickly with a revised pick up time – 45 minutes.  We four pace, play silly “who am I games” and generally work hard to keep our spirits up. Garry paces further than us and fortunately is in sight of the Tabac when he sees a taxi pull in at 9.15pm.  The tow truck driver has told Hertz that we will be there!  Garry waves his arms about and attracts the drivers attention and we all make a relieved run for the cab.  He has no GPS, has not heard of Lolme either, but does know Monpazier which is a relief because we have no idea where we are.  He agrees to take us to Monpazier and allow us to navigate from there.  I tremulously turn my phone on – 6% – and my TomTom guides us to Les Couges.  We pull up at 10.10pm.  I think some of us thought we would never see this place again.  Wine and pate for dinner.  We are prisoners here until we speak with Hertz tomorrow to arrange a new car.

Thursday 5 May

We all sleep in, after an exhausting day yesterday.  I ring Hertz at 10am and undertake the usual wait.  I explain the situation and the kind woman offers to investigate and ring me back, which she does about an hour later.  We can’t pick up a car today because…it’s a public holiday.  She will ring me tomorrow!  We don’t mind too much, we are happy to have a day at home to potter.  I ring David to thank him for everything he did for us yesterday.  He came to find us but when we were not at the crime scene he assumed that everything had been resolved and was relieved to find “that France sometimes works”!  I told him we were at the Tabac but that everything had worked out.  I ring Trish Hobbs and Dany Chouet (who used to own Cleopatra in Blackheath), with whom we were to have a drink tonight.  They moved back to France 16 years ago and live near here.  We will see them tomorrow night instead.  Assuming we have a car.  We are literally marooned here without one.  There are worse places to be marooned but we have very few supplies.

Di makes a lovely Spanish omelette for lunch, and we eat outside on this lovely day.  We marvel at the perfect blue sky and what a busy flight path is over this part of France, as there are so many jet streams.

Hopefully tomorrow we will be whisked away in a taxi to a Hertz office and a shiny new car, with four functioning wheels.  Then we have to go to the butcher and explain the pigeons.  On our recent history I expect it will be the guillotine for us.

 

 

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!