October 2011

Well here we are, October and still van-less, although we're a bit closer - T is heading down to the south-west next week to sort out a gearbox.

In the meantime.........

THE Wedding

Tim and Fiona's wedding went ahead in September with narry a dry eye in the house. It was a bit alternative - the bride wore black, with red velvet Doc Martins, and the groom arrived at the church in a beautiful old VW Combi.

T & K both scrubbed up well and K's hat was definitely the most elegant on display.

The happy couple (Tim and Fi that is) had a lovely holiday on the Gower, enjoying the unseasonably fine weather and came back hale, hearty and tanned with Tim about to start in a new job.

K&T polish up nicely

Tim, Fi, K & T

France

We'd booked our customary October trip to France for the week after the wedding. We'd decided to give the Eelfest in Perpignan a miss this year in favour of heading directly to St Trop and regaining all the energy we'd used in the fun of the wedding.

The flight from Liverpool to Toulon (£8 each, including everything!) was due to leave on Monday at 06.40, check in by 06.10, and for once we were on time and not rushing. We were 20 minutes from the airport at 05.00. We drove down the sliproad on to the M56 and met stationary traffic, extending about 500 yards in front of us - not a massive jam and we were in plenty of time. Five and a half hours later we were still there. A tanker had managed to dump 5000 litres of diesel on the carriageway and it was obviously beyond the authorities' wit to figure out a way of filtering traffic through.

Total deflation and disappointment. We were so looking forward to this break and really needed it. T went online while we were in the queue, found a flight from Stansted on Wednesday and rearranged parking and car hire arrangements while our friend Jac sorted out National Express transport to Stansted.

Needless to say, we were very dischuffed as we headed back home.

We stayed in Birmingham on Tuesday night ready for an early start at the bus depot on Wednesday morning. There ensued a truly terrifying journey at the hands of a driver who had obviously had a very bad night. He was surly and rude to passengers, we heard him argueing with a colleague, he drove with no regard for any of his passengers, depositing a woman with a child in her arms on the floor as he reversed out of a stop in Milton Keynes at speed.

Now T has no aversion to driving or being driven quickly but on this occasion it proved too much. He called the bus company on his mobile and made a complaint during the journey and then again when we returned home. NE came up with a fulsome apology and a promise of discipline for the driver. It has put us off using them in future.

Ryanair did their stuff and got us to Toulon on time and then we hit the next problem. Eurocar seemed to have changed the rules about guarantee cards for their hire cars and, for some reason, ours was unacceptable. We tried all sorts of ruses and wheezes, all to no avail, the upshot being that the travel jinx struck us again with no transport to get to Grimaud, or for travel during our fortnight away.

K embraces alternative transport!

A rapid re-think resulted in us sitting on a bus headed for Hyeres and then another to Gassin, the Geant hypermarket about four miles from our holiday home, Dunrunnin (great value at €2 for a forty mile trip we thought).

We decided to do our shopping and get a taxi for the last bit. Hah! Fat chance! Would you believe there are no taxis after 20.00 in the St Tropez area? No, neither did we but it didn't change the fact that we couldn't get one.

The choice was we either nick the shopping trolley and push it home, four miles along unlit roads, already knackered and at the end of our collective tether, or, errmm, think of something else. A stop for breath, count to about a thousand and K suggested calling our friends in UK to get them to phone neighbours at Dunrunnin to see if they would pick us up. Thank goodness, half an hour later we were esconced at Dunrunnin with a very large glass of red and not much conversation.

T chews a wasp!

From there on in, once T had come round to the idea that cycling everywhere would be fun (after our first trip down to St Trop and a ride back in the teeth of a mistral his verdict was along the lines of "well if that's cycling you can stick it up your lycra nappy"), things settled down to our usual laid back routine with lots of sunshine, good food and, above all else, sleep.




K in her Baywatch cozzie 



Just in case it gets lost......

We weren't exactly looking forward to getting home but we did have the prospect of seeing the kids, sorting out The Rosabella, and T starting the life of Riley with his three day a week semi-retirement about to kick in with Wednesday becoming the new Friday!