A very un-busy week! We seem to have spent a lot of time driving around from one place to another in order to get things done, but none of it of any great interest or importance. Early on in the week, Neels serviced our little car, which meant draining the oil and changing oil filters, and that turned into a bit of a circus. First of all, the car is so close to the ground that he couldn’t get underneath it to get to the nut that needed to be loosened; then, he found that he didn’t have a spanner the right size to loosen it anyway. Fortunately some friends who live about five minutes away could help so he went there quickly in Nicky’s car, which was spending the week with us while she was away and then was a very happy chappie until right at the end of the job when he ran the car off the chocks he had built up to raise it, the underside of the car caught the edge of the container into which he had drained all the old oil and upended it onto the gravel driveway. Disaster! But the French have cleaners for everything, and we found a bottle of liquid in the garage called a ‘de-greaser’ which we poured on, waited a while and rinsed off and hey presto! The gravel was clean. Quite amazing stuff, but I hate to think what it is made of. This sort of job would be accomplished in a short while at home with all the necessary equipment, but here it took almost all day.
The following day was just as bad. We needed to fax a document back to South Africa after it had been printed off our email, and signed. Unfortunately we haven’t got a printer attached to the computer, much less a fax machine, so we had to go to Nicky’s flat to use her printer, but someone else had the keys (to be able to water the plants while Nicky was away) so we first had to get the keys and then work out how to use her computer and printer and then it was almost twelve o’clock and Neels had to run to the shop to fax it off, and then we had to take the keys back, and then it was twelve o’clock and everything shut for lunch for two hours. Grr! We had wanted to go to the ‘cave’, the wine cellars, to get some wine, but as we parked the car the assistant drove off. There was nothing for it but to go home again, have some lunch and come back again in the afternoon. Once again, a whole day spent doing two fairly minor chores.
Wednesday turned out sunny but not too hot, so we both donned our shorts and went to do some gardening. Actually it was really a lot of weed-pulling and Neels also got the grass cut again so everything is looking all neat and tidy at the moment.
We were really looking forward to Saturday as we had been handed a flyer advertising ‘An exhibition of technology’ at the Aignan Lake One of the exhibitors happened to be a model shop from Tarbes and they were going to display radio-controlled models of all sorts – cars, planes, helicopters and boats – so naturally enough Neels was very interested. We thought we would give the official opening speeches a miss and planned to arrive in time to get a decent parking spot not too far from the lake. So we rolled in there at 1.30 pm, for an event scheduled to start at 3 pm and found ourselves to be the only car there. Puzzled, we went to the small restaurant and asked where all the people were and where the exhibits were, but the owner was as mystified as ourselves. She had been asked to put a long table outside, from which an aperitif was going to be served, which she had done, and then no-one turned up! What a complete disappointment. We waited a while in case, miraculously, hordes of spectators suddenly materialized out of the trees and then took ourselves off for a lovely scenic drive instead. So the day was not completely wasted.
On Sunday we heard about a massive ‘once-a-year’ Vide Grenier not far from here so thought we would go and have a look, for half an hour or so. It was a beautiful day and quite obviously a lot of other people thought the same as the little village was heaving. Our half an hour turned into about three hours and we came away with a very nice one litre china jug, two DVD’s and some odd balls of wool which are going to be just right for the little elephants I have been asked to knit for a friend, who wants them in different colours. Very definitely a case of ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’. These sales are quite addictive though – even if one buys nothing. It is always fascinating to see what other people are offering for sale and what yet more people are buying!
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