Home...

Thursday 14 November

We do have our little adventures.  The usual route to Gatwick out of East Grinstead was totally snarled up, so we’d to do a 3-point turn and knit ourselves an alternative route.  Good job Martyn knows his way around.  The airport was altogether bearable, though it’s always a long walk to the aeroplane from the tea shop.  (The excellent Café Rouge has opened an airside bar restaurant with a good view over the field.)  Question:  Why do the Easyjet gate gorillas insist on women packing their handbags inside their carry-ons on pain of a £45 surcharge, yet let blokes can carry on separate bags of airside-purchased booze with impunity?

The plane was pretty full, but mercifully free of screaming children this time.  For the first time we saw a couple of the newish Boeing 787s taxiing out, and very smart they look too.  Plastic aeroplanes for grown-ups, one’s tempted to call them.  We were less happy when we left the ground, however: we got a good throwing about, probably by the wake turbulence of either a 787 or an Emirates 777.  My last experience thereof, also in an A319, knocked the aeroplane completely out of control, and it seemed to take a lifetime to get it re-stabilised.  And a few days to get my suit cleaned after next door’s supper had landed on it.  So for a few minutes into the flight one felt scared and sick.  The rest of the journey was fine, with good views of the Mediterranean coast as we swung into Montpellier from the south.

Fair enough lunch in the Villa Plancha in the airport terminal – OK, my grilled veggies didn’t materialise, we’d to remind the waitress to bring the bread, and there was no view, but overall mustn’t grumble.  Well, not much, at least.

On arrival, I found that I’d printed and packed the car rental booking receipt, but not the confirmation, so didn’t have a note of which company we’d rented from.  I was pretty sure it was Alamo; Martyn thought it was Citer.  We couldn’t see Alamo anywhere, so tried Citer.  No trace.  Next plan: back to the airport to check my email via the free wifie.  Before we left the car hire building, however, I checked the other desks, and it turned out that Europcar represents Alamo, and they were expecting us.  What is it about the signposting out of southern French airports?  We went a good 450° round the roundabout before finding the exit for the A9 by elimination, having by this point already narrowly avoided adding to the already huge list of recorded damage to the car.  There was quite a mêlée following a 3-car shunt just before the motorway exit.

Your obedient servant having forgotten to pack the motorway toll gizmo, we had to queue up for a ticket at Saint-Jean de Védas.  Martyn posted it in a convenient slot in the dashboard, and I fear it will remain there till the car goes to the scrap yard.  Conversation ensued at the Lézigzag toll bar with electronically remote but helpful lady who let us through – despite the refusal of the Gaga card (good job I had the Banque Postale one with me as well). 

The car seems OK, but like last time it is quite elderly, with getting on for 37’000 km on the clock, and a great long list of dings and scrapes.  It runs well enough, and mercifully changes its own gears.  The auto box perhaps accounts for the still-acceptable state of the front tyres.  It didn’t take too long to work out how to operate the cruise control. But there was nothing the car could do to help with the huge numbers of  HGVs on the A9.  Not a great experience.  The main route from the rest of Europe to Mediterranean Spain, it carries a huge amount of freight.  We saw Bulgarian, Czech, Latvian and Romanian trucks among others: how do these drivers survive?  I’ve read somewhere that certain of their British counterparts survive on oranges injected with vodka.  Be afraid.

Friday 15 November

Good job it’s a dreich day.  We waited in for the builder until midday, when he emailed me to say he wasn’t coming, but was sending a stooge tomorrow instead.  Snarl. 

So, a day for model-making and reading.  I toyed with starting a new canvas, but the one I have in stock is too big to fit in my back pack.  So let’s have another glass of that nice Côtes du Rhône Villages.

Saturday 16 November

Call from stooge: 'is it OK if I come tomorrow?'  'No, it isn't.'  'OK, j'arrive.'  We've agreed that they'll do a patch-up on the end wall (but not before the spring), and will get in and sort the leaky window on the roof terrace a bit sooner.  Good, since the water was running down the bathroom tiles after all the rain.

Nice evening with Irish neighbours Sheila and Henry. 

Sunday 17 November

We left in rain, wondering whether it was a good idea, given that the river is rising again.  The next ten hours will tell. 

Montpellier airport fails to impress.  There are two men’s lavatories landside.  One is closed for repairs.  The other’s 2^nd class accommodation was cordoned off.  The lavatory for disabled users was out of service.  The men’s at gate 14 had no lighting, forcing one to leave the door open.  (Fortunately it was a minor visit…)  The staff we encountered were just f@%&ing  rude.  You go up an escalator to departure level, then have to walk down a flight of steps without the option.  The catering on offer was expensive, tepid, unimaginative and highly indigestible.  But coming through Gatwick tends to put things in perspective: long walks, stinking lavatories – oh, I give up.  Fortunately the car park shuttle was fairly rapid, and the drive home was dry, if beset with fools how don’t know how to dip their headlights.  We live to tell the tale.