More miles

The Campanile in Ferney-Voltaire was disappointing - no mean feat for an address of which one already has modest expectations.  The room was not very clean.  No problem with the linen, if the towels were frayed and clearly well-worn.  The skirting board was in grave need of a dose of sugar soap and a lick of paint, perhaps because, the room being right by the disabled drivers' parking slot, of scuffing by wheelchairs.  The textured plaster on the walls was cracked and bulging in places.  Sleep was somewhat elusive, but at least the discreet air conditioning kept the room temperature bearable on what was a pretty hot night, and the walk-in shower was excellent.  The breakfast spread was adequate if meagre.  There was broken glass on the dining room floor by my seat.  Overall, rather poor value for money. 

With a little pre-journey research, and some help from Dotty, we found the MediaMarkt in Meyrin easily enough, and stood and watched aircraft taking off until the shop opened its doors.  A characteristically Swiss experience: the salesman, on taking a decent order within seconds of opening and without the need to advise a punter who knew what he wanted, waived the software pre-installation charge, and stripped the corresponding label off the package.  The cashier felt obliged to call the salesman to make sure I hadn't taken it off myself, thus making me feel like one presumed dishonest.  The next peculiarity of MediaMarkt is that they only accept cash, or Maestro or Poste cards, neither of which I have.  After a long and frustrating dialogue with the ATM, I managed to cobble together the necessary cash from the personal, housekeeping and French accounts to buy the new laptop - yet again.  The price one pays for a preferred keyboard, eh?

Getting through Geneva was rather slow.  The traffic lights are obviously programmed to deter private motorists.  Numerous buses roared past as we waited at four or five red lights.  Dotty persuaded us to do the last bit on the motorway, and we'll see in due course whether the authorities noticed that I hadn't paid the £32 to use the same for the 15 minutes we spent on them.  The drive down the valleys to Valence is quite spectacular in places, with the vast rock faces of the Chartreuse and the Vercors to either side.  Valence itself was slow as usual, but had nothing on the congestion of the northbound A7 and eastbound A9   We were glad to be heading south and west.  I'll spare you the details of the ugly and incompetent driving en route.  Although the journey took only about six hours, it was quite exhausting.  The car purred along without protest and, thanks in part to a lively mistral, pretty economically for a largish brick of bodywork cruising at 130 kph.

As is so often the way, the bright sunshine and 35° temperatures had given way to threatening leaden skies and about 25° by the time we reached the Corbières.  I think the bad weather was moving south, so we didn't get the soaking we expected.  Or not yet.  No surprises on arriving home, fortunately, and having stocked up in Lézigzag on the way in, we had a quiet evening at home.

Well, quiet except for the occasional tirade of vile language as I set up the new laptop.  This process has continued today, as I transfer my documents and photographs from the various USB sticks to the new hard disk.  The DVD drive is very noisy, but photoshop seems to have installed satisfactorily, and the local printer is working.  The new MS Office package seems to have its own views on fonts, however, so I shall have to review most of my saved templates.  We'd think that, for the rather cynical £120 bill for replacing something we've already paid for, they'd try to make life easier, wouldn't you?  And thus we would under-estimate the Gates cash generator.

After replenishing essential supplies at the Caves of St-Laurent and Camplong this morning, we aimed to return home over the hill from Ribaute, but were stopped by a crush barrier which announced a total prohibition on driving, cycling, walking, hopping, skipping or jumping in the massif.  This is because of the fire risk, and the prohibited area, I now learn, stretches from Boutenac to Lagrasse.  A German couple were on foot just behind us as we reached the barrier, and the dialogue that followed suggested that I can just about keep it up in basic German, which is a comfort.  As I write, the firefighting Trackers drone overhead, watching for smoke, I think, rather than dealing with fires.  The Trackers, by the way, are now pretty ancient: at well over 50 years old, they need replacing, and I think the Sécurité Civile is trying to persuade Bombardier to re-open the Canadair flying boat production line.  The Trackers seem now to be heading back over us to Carcassonne.  I think the fire insurance is up to date...

Getting a bit old for this...

For the first time in weeks I wasn't wide awake at 04:30 when the alarm went off.  Just as well I'd programmed the iPad alarm, then.  So, we were in France by 09:45 local, joining the procession of Brit registrations down the A26.  No wonder it's known quasi officially as the Autoroute des Anglais, much loved as it is by Brits who don't relish the rough and tumble of driving in the Paris region.  We sill met some pretty ugly driving, notably people accelerating while being overtaken, which is close to a capital offence in France.  One curiosity of today's traffic was the preponderance of Brit motor caravans with silly personal number plates.  I think there has to a correlation between motor caravan ownership and sporting naff number plates.

Since I'm hoping to pick up a new laptop tomorrow (Swiss keyboard: long story...) we have routed via Geneva, including a beautiful if demanding drive through the Jura including the Col de la Faucille, of Monte Carlo Rally fame.  The route being somewhat sportive, it attracts a lot of kamikaze bikers on Sundays, so one had to keep one's wits about one.  Unfortunately, the first bit of the N5 is closed, so we'd to take a diversion.  Martyn found us a slightly shorter version, including cliff faces, tunnels cut in the rock, etc, so it's perhaps not amazing that I'm feeling so tired.  I'd programmed Dotty to find the hotel for us, and she routed us via some tiny residential streets in the villages north of the airport.  The route to the laptop shop seems straightforward, however, though getting from there to Lagrasse without paying for a Swiss motorway vignette may be entertaining.

Odd sights on the roads today included cars with microlight aircraft on trailers, a Morris Minor tourer, roof down, towing an elderly caravan, and an Alfasud in running order.  Notorious rust buckets, you won't see one of them very often.

Unlike many of its chain, the Campanile we're in does not have any other restaurants nearby, so we'd to settle for supper in-house.  Adequate is perhaps the kindest description: my jaws ache after dealing with the steak-frites.  Still I doubt if they can ruin breakfast.

O tempora, o mores

It's a fact of life as the years rack up that one pays more visits to the chemists than heretofore.  Both this morning and on my last visit, there was someone ahead of me being given a slurp of methodone.   And they are the relatively lucky ones whose addiction is being managed, and aren't being forced to do street retail to fund their own hard drugs.  Maybe.  Helps me to see my old geezer medications in context, I suppose.

Progress - mainly

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we finally have our summerhouse.  After the earlier sequence of fiascos, the suppliers agreed to send a complete replacement kit, and replace the mixture that came in the first and second deliveries.  It came as little surprise that the new kit was about as crap as the old one, with even more damage to some panels than before.  Well, we managed to make one good kit out of the two on site, and the fitters arrived early next morning (having telephoned at 06:45, fer chrissakes, to say they were half an hour away).  They did a good job, and were off site soon after 09:00, off to Croydon to repair another shed. It looked a bit lurid at first in its yellow dip coat with variously pink and green paint'n'peel film over the window panes.  It has since had two coats of green cuprinol (well, on the bits that show, anyway).  It was a shame that we had to source and fit things that ought to have been included, given what we were charged: hooks and eyes to hold the doors open, a keyhole plate and some brass plates to secure the bolts top and bottom.  Well, they're bought and fitted now, and the whole deal looks pretty respectable, I'd say.

While I've been flapping about with the summerhouse, Martyn has calmly re-profiled and relined the pond, building a new rockery surround to it.  He carefully removed the wildlife from the old pond before starting on  the work, and we think they're settling back in.  (We have an extended family of newts in residence - or did.)  So far we've replanted some bits of thrift and iris sibirica, and we'll add more as the spirit moves us.

The place has been pretty busy today, what with us adding some finishing touches by the pond, Dave from the farm down the road giving the hedges a long overdue trim, and a chap from the landscapers refixing a paving slab that had come loose.  Proper little hive of industry, eh?

This all follows an early start: we were out in convoy soon after 08:00 to take Martyn's car to his preferred fettlers in the undustrial estate.  It is getting a fresh pan of oil and a recharge of the air-conditioning gas, since the chiller had gone AWOL.  Not bad though: eight years on one charge.  But at 16:00, we still haven't had the call to say it's ready.  That's the closest I can get to a cliffhanger this time, I'm afraid!

The things you hear..

...in a nearby Magistrates' court.  Clerk: 'On the last occasion, he put in a medical certificate saying he was unfit to climb scaffolding.'  Bloke in middle to colleagues: 'Well, we weren't planning on hanging him, were we?'

It never rains...

The last few months have not been the best of our lives, but we have each other and, by and large, our health.  My date with the orthopod seems to be postponed to the Greek Calends, and the summerhouse remains unbuilt after two deliveries and two rejections on quality grounds.  Political developments hang over us like a dark and highly threatening cloud. 

So, what to do?  A trip to the seaside, of course.  Good news: the William the Conqueror at Rye harbour is much improved, and provided us each with a pretty good home-made burger and pot of tea per man, and at a reasonable price.  The place appears to have had a lick of paint inside and out, as has the attitude of the staff - or maybe the whole payroll.  We had a brief walk along the flood defence wall at Pett Level, getting force-fed with fresh air for ten minutes or so before turning and returning to the car. 

As we left Hastings, however, we noticed a thump-thump-thump in time with the rotation of the wheels.  Investigation revealed a hefty nail head in the tread of the offside back tyre.  It's about an inch in from the shoulder, so I'm hoping it can be repaired: I dropped it in at our usual tyre fettlers on the way home, and wait to hear from them.  The good news is that, once I'd found the key to the anti-theft wheel nut, I was able, with the help of some Bishop footwork on the wheel brace, to change the wheel without difficulty.  It's comforting to know one still can (not to mention remember how to) at one's age.  We'd then to do a 3-point turn on the main drag in Battle, which was totally gummed up with lorries and coaches, and found a route to the A21 via the back doubles.  Imagine my joy when the nag behind the dashboard put up a tyre pressure warning.  We could find nothing wrong, so assume it was protesting at the dynamics of a skinny spare wheel.  We reset the warning thingy, and teetered home without further alarms or excursions - at the prescribed 50 mph max, much to the chagrin of following drivers.

I hate to think what tomorrow may bring.