After a really good flight from Cape Town, and quite a lot of sleep, relatively speaking, we arrived in Amsterdam which the pilot had told us was a chilly 3 degrees. Luckily we disembarked through a gantry straight into the airport terminal so were unaware of the cold. A friend who was on her way to the USA had been on the same flight as ourselves, so we were able to enjoy a cup of coffee together before we went our separate ways. It helped to fill the time between flights very pleasantly.
On arrival at Toulouse we were met by my cousin and rather grey weather. It was also extremely cold, so we were not really surprised to see snow covered fields once we had cleared the city. At first it was just a sprinkle here and there but as we drove further it became thicker and thicker, although the road was perfectly clear. The closer we got to our destination, the less evidence there was of the heavy snowfall of the previous week, although there was a thin sprinkling in the driveway of the house, which stayed until Thursday.
Various friends had been into the house and we found the fire burning, food in the frig and the cupboards and even a bottle of our favourite wine! A delicious stew was waiting to be heated up in the microwave after which we treated ourselves to ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. Even the black and white cat, Flo, gave us an enthusiastic welcome and made us feel very much ‘back home’.
My cousin had announced that she had recently changed both her cell phone and her service provider and offered us her old phone complete with SIM card and time on the card. What a bonus! When we switched it on the next morning, we discovered that there was a message from the people who had cared for our little car for the past nine months. It was to tell us that there may well be a problem with the car’s battery as it had been very reluctant to start when it was brought across to the house. And how right they were! The battery was absolutely as dead as the proverbial doornail. So now we had a bit of a problem. We are about 8 kms from the nearest suitable battery outlet and wanted to try to sort our problem unaided. First we found the battery charger in the storeroom and hooked that up while we unpacked and found places for everything. However, when there was simply no spark of life after a few hours of charging, we had to try Plan B. Part One of Plan B was to use the battery of the other car which is parked here and try to jump start Goldie. Uh-oh…..no jump leads. Part Two was to put that battery into Goldie but it was too big. So we had to revert to Part Three which was to drive the car (a Volvo estate car) to the nearest battery supplier and buy a new battery. Of course, we had forgotten about the two-hour lunch-time in France so found ourselves sitting outside the garage for about half an hour. It was worth the wait though and we were soon back at the house and fitting the new battery which happily solved all the starting problems.
We have already submitted our documents for renewing our long-stay permits so it is just a case of waiting for a card in the post to tell us to fetch them again. Of course, the goal posts have been moved again, in true French style, and the photographs which were acceptable last year are no longer acceptable this year and we had to get others done. And we can never get going early enough in the morning, so we end up having to sprint around furiously to achieve everything before that lunch hour!
We have also been back to Peyrusse Vieille to say hallo to our dear friend Ady. When she saw us walking down the path to her house, she flung open the window and shrieked her delight at seeing us. She certainly does one’s ego a huge amount of good. We were so busy talking that she almost forgot about ringing the church bells at midday. She suddenly looked at the clock and shot out of her chair with an ‘Ooh la la!’ and rushed off to the church which is practically next door. The fact that it was by then almost ten past twelve didn’t seem to faze her at all. All the farm labourers waiting for her lunch time reminder would probably just take ten minutes more at the other end of the two hours.
On Saturday the sun came out for the first time and the sky was brilliant blue. What a difference sun makes to one’s surroundings! I hope it stays like this for while so that we can go and visit old haunts and see them at their best.
We rounded off the week with a visit to the cinema –a very novel exercise for us as there has been no ‘movie house’ in Hermanus for quite some time. We saw ‘The Artist’ which has recently won a number of awards. It is a silent movie, in black and white, which is unusual. However, with brilliant camera work and eminently suitable music, the producers have managed a remarkable result. We loved it!
We have been so occupied this week that it feels as if we have been away for months already, and it is only the end of five days!
No comments:
Post a Comment