France 2013 Chapter 24

 

So it has come at last! The last day of the last week of the last month of our stay in France. The time has flown and days have dragged, depending on circumstances at the time, but, as always, we have loved every minute of it – the snow and cold, the rain, the heat, everything has contributed to our adventure and to new experiences. The suitcases are packed………….well, nearly, and in a few hours we will be at the airport ready to fly away.

During the last week we have been quite occupied with clearing up, cleaning up, sweeping, hovering, dusting and mopping. I think we can say that the house is now spotless, although I know without doubt that there will be filmy spider webs back in the corners in a day or two. I thought they were bad back at home but these spiders are the most persistent we have met.

The first suitcase was easy to pack as all the thick winter clothes had to go into it. Then everything else has to go into the other case. Easy-peasy, I thought, but I haven’t yet started to actually pack into the case and the mound on the bed is growing alarmingly. It’s going to be touch and go.

It hasn’t been all work though. We managed to find time in the week to take ourselves out for a farewell lunch in our favourite restaurant in Eauze, which was all decorated for the holiday season and looked very festive, and two long rambling drives trying to get lost in the country lanes in order to see things we hadn’t found previously. On the second occasion we actually managed to lose our way and could have been in trouble as we had already packed our faithful large scale map book, but trusty ‘Jane’ was still tucked away in the glove compartment and brought us home safely on  one of the most convoluted routes we have driven for some time. It was a fitting finale to our stay!

The weather has been simply perfect over the last week too. Temperatures round about 25 degrees and beautiful clear sunny skies. The sunflowers are out in all the fields and make a stunning backdrop to the general scenery. It all makes it very hard to leave, but we are now also looking forward to getting home; to re-connecting with our friends; and to sleeping in our own bed again. It’s been a lot of fun; we have seen plenty of new sights; we have entertained and been entertained and nothing has happened to change our opinion that this is definitely one of the best places to live.

Thank you all for staying the course with us. It has been good to know you are out there.

Goodbye until next time.