Travelling again Part 16

This episode is going to cover only the first four days of the week as we are intending to spend the Jubilee Weekend away from the house and away from most mod cons. On Monday, I should have been busying myself with orderly packing in preparation for our departure for England, but my heart certainly wasn’t in it. I had decided to hand over my dongle and my French SIM card to our friends who intended to stay on in the house after we had left, but the dongle had breathed it’s last just after I sent off last week’s post so needed recharging. The nearest place to do this was in Nogaro a few kilometres away, so we thought a short last drive would be a good idea. However, with every day being a holiday for all four of us, we hadn’t realised that Monday was another public holiday and that all the shops were shut, but at least we showed them where to go to recharge the dongle. Then we had to face the inevitable and pack. The following morning they took us to Toulouse to catch our plane to England, while they, leaving their car in the long-stay parking area, caught a bus into Toulouse city where they spent the day. Our flight was pleasant and uneventful and it was simply wonderful to see my sister, Carol and her husband, Steve, again. No rest for the wicked, though, as they say and on Wednesday morning, we were off to the boat on the canal for the first stage of a long weekend away. Ahead of us was a fairly taxing trip through a series of locks. The reason for this is that the canal which runs quite close to their house and on which the boat is generally moored, is actually eighty feet above sea level, and the place we intended to spend the weekend, Glasson, is at sea level. As they had not ever done these locks on their own before, they had asked a friend to join us and he was invaluable. Carol, Neels and friend Eric operated the locks on land; Steve drove and I got the easy job of holding the ropes. It took several hours to negotiate the six locks but it was a glorious sunny day and everyone enjoyed themselves. We then came home and fell into bed after a quick supper – worn out! By Thursday the weather had changed but as Neels and I were both beginning to look a bit shaggy, we went off to the local hair-cutting shop for a quick trim. It was market day in Garstang, which was quite sad as there were fewer people out and about and all the stalls had had to put up their rain covers, but everyone still seemed very jolly. I suppose they are used to rainy weather! The afternoon was spent getting all our bits and pieces together necessary for our weekend away. And that is as far as the week goes. I will fill you in our weekend’s activities in the next episode.