FRANCE 2015 Chapter 19

Our last week in France and still so much that we want to do! But we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this is supposedly a holiday for us. I’m not really sure why it should be as we are always on holiday, being retirees. However, after another exhausting weekend, we gave ourselves the day off on Monday, to recover. On Tuesday though, packing up started in earnest. How is it possible for two people to accumulate so much in such a short time? In no time at all we had five boxes of assorted sizes all packed to the brim and put into the boot of the car. Meanwhile, Neels washed and polished the car and generally prepared it for its long hibernation.

The following morning, as we went through town we stopped at the station to buy our tickets to Toulouse and were delighted to discover that for some reason , there is a ‘special’ on for Saturday and the tickets were half price. Then it was on again , to the estate agent, to say ‘Good bye’ and ‘Thank you’ until we see him again next year, then finally on to the house to offload all the boxes. This just leaves another three still to go which we will fill with last minute items to take when we go to leave the car there on Friday. Oh dear! It now really feels as if we are leaving.

Wednesday and Thursday also found us fielding several phone calls from various friends and family wishing us a safe trip home, which we were pleased to get. It’s always nice to know that we are in people’s hearts and minds , and, much as we regret having to leave all our new friends (and a few that we already knew), we are really looking forward to getting back to all our ‘old’ friends and catching up on all their news.

On Friday, our host had very kindly said that he would drive out to Ols to fetch us after we had delivered the last few boxes; parked Goldie in her little hidey-hole under the veranda and covered her in her new car cover. As the cover is camouflage green, and about a third of the car is under the veranda, it is almost invisible and hopefully, not in anyone’s way. Our hosts arrived a little while later and admired the house all over again, as well as all our new acquisitions piled in various heaps. We are so bucked that everyone who has seen the house so far has admired it, because we just love it and can’t wait to get back and start putting things in their places and filling up the empty spaces. Friday evening was idyllic – still and peaceful and quiet, with a wonderful golden glow over all the surrounding countryside. We had been invited to have dinner with our hosts as it was our final night with them and we both had to admit to a feeling of genuine sadness at having to leave. I think we have made some very good friends here, and we hope the friendship goes on and on.

All too soon it was Saturday morning and time to squeeze the last things into the suitcases. We were whisked down to the station by our ever-accommodating host, and then in seemingly no time at all, we had ‘done’ the train ride (one and a half hours) and finished the bus ride from the station to the airport (twenty-five minutes) and were sitting in the departure lounge waiting for our flight from Toulouse to Istanbul (four hours). As we sat in Istanbul airport waiting for our flight home we wondered what had happened to the day. We had only spent six hours in actual travel but we had dragged ourselves out of bed at six o’clock in the morning and by the time we were sitting calculating, it was eight o’clock at night – fourteen hours later. What a waste of time travel is!!

After a lengthy and tedious five hour stop-over in Istanbul we boarded a packed plane to Johannesburg at one-thirty a.m. and were served a meal at two thirty. Having already had breakfast at 6.30 a.m., lunch at twelve then a snack at about six p.m., we wondered what this midnight meal could be called. After that we managed to sleep for about four hours before they gave us breakfast again at seven a.m.. It is no wonder that one’s body clock gets so totally out of kilter when travelling. To finish off the day, our Cape Town family were at the airport to greet us and had brought lunch and supper with them. Having lunch at 3 o’clock was beginning to feel quite normal but I’m afraid we faded before we could enjoy the supper they had left here for us, but how we had enjoyed the afternoon with them all. We have missed our children and grandchildren so much over the past four months.

What we were not expecting though, was our re-acquaintance with load-shedding on the power supply. We were about to make some coffee, tea and hot chocolate when we discovered that neither the kettle nor the microwave were working. Having checked all the switches on the circuit board and found none faulty, someone suddenly had the bright idea of trying the lights, which of course also didn’t work and it was then that we realised that we were back in South Africa.