Quite a day!

I started the week by setting out a few plans for what I needed to do. One of them was getting my satellite TV system working and I managed to do that straight away. The trouble was that after buying a TV and connecting it up, I then proceeded to waste a day (alright, two really…) just sitting in front of it flicking through the available channels and watching anything that caught my interest. So I thought I’d better get my act together as there are other things I need to sort out. For example, I need to cut my grass for the last time this year. Also the X-Air has been sitting in my garden for some time and I’ve had the bits I need to do the jobs on it that I want to for several days. I also need to buy some floor tiles that match as closely as possible the ones I already have in my house and yesterday that was the job I thought I’d tackle.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently I saw some tiles that might be suitable on the Internet. But the only way I could be sure would be to see them for myself – and that meant driving about 500 kms (approx 300 miles) each way to the warehouse in Caissargues just south of Nimes. I left yesterday a bit later than I wanted to at about 10.00am after plugging the journey details into my satnav which I’ve found to be the best way of finding my way around France, especially on longer journeys. I didn’t even own an up-to-date French map until yesterday. Due to mountains and things, often there is no direct route from A to B in France and yesterday was a case in point. Although I wanted to go in a south-easterly direction, I had to start by heading south towards the Mediterranaean and Spain. After just under an hour I arrived at my first ‘gare de payage’ (toll road station) and as my car is right-hand-drive, I usually get out to get the ticket from the machine. Yesterday because I had an impatient lady driver right up behind me, I decided to open my passenger window and lean right across the car. In doing so I not only broke my satnav power lead but as I found out later, also the car cigarette lighter socket that I use to power it.

This was a disaster – what to do! I knew roughly where I was but still had hundreds of kms to go. I reasoned that if I bought a map and switched my satnav off, I could then switch it on again when I was close to the end of the journey and use the power it still retained to find my destination. After all, we used to do that all the time before satnavs without any help from electronic gizmos of any sort!

And I got away with it! My route (now unplanned) took me in a giant sweeping arc all the way down past (not through as in the old days) Toulouse, Carcassonne (the magnificent mediaeval walled city), Narbonne, Montauban and Montpellier before arriving at Nimes. On the way I spotted the old names, Aigues Mortes, Sete etc, that I last saw when we were on our last family holiday down there in 1986 – 26 years ago. It made me feel very nostalgic.

I found a petrol station after leaving the ‘peage’ at Nimes and asked a young guy who was filling up his car next to mine if he knew where the tile warehouse was. It turned out it that was just up the road! Unfortunately the trip was wasted in that respect because lovely though the tiles they had were (and also the people selling them amazingly kind and helpful), they did not match mine closely enough. Then it came time to think about the trip home. I thought I’d try what looked to be a more direct ‘cross country’ route that would take me north from Montpellier via Millau to Rodez and thence the Dordogne. And Millau, of course, is world-famous for its stunning viaduct – designed by a British architect – that spans between two hills about 900 feet above the ground.

The drive out of Montpellier was something of a nightmare in what was the worst traffic jam I’ve been in since leaving the UK. And French drivers give no allowances for not knowing which exit you need from roundabouts and are quick to lean on their horns if you hesitate for a moment and inconvenience them in their dash from work to home! After a drive north on mainly good, fast roads, I arrived at the ‘Viaduc Millau’. Unfortunately when I drove across it, it was dark so all I could see by my headlights were the supports that towered above the roadway and the barriers at the side and the centre of the road. But fantastically, spread out on the ground below were the lights of the town as though you were in an aircraft flying over them. An amazing experience – one that I must do in daylight some time.

French roads have come on amazingly since we used to come on holiday all those years ago. The motorways are very smooth and modern with speed limits of either 110 kmh (70 mph) or 130 kmh (83 mph). Much of the route I took home was motorway standard even as it climbed higher and higher into the mountains, not much of which I could see unfortunately. When it became particularly bendy either going up or down, then the speed limit was reduced to as low as 90 kmh or even 70 kmh but on the whole you could be speeding along at 110 kmh in what I am sure would have been stunning scenery in the daylight.

Toddie and I, for I had to take him with me of course, got home some time after midnight, so it was a long day. He crashed out straight away and was still taking it easy and sleeping as I began to type this this morning. Not surprising as he’s an old boy now – a bit like myself, although I was just being a bit lazy and choosing not to do the things I really should have been doing today 😉