Buzz Buzz

The long drive:

Buzz, buzz,buzz. What the F***???  John’s phone is going off at 0600. Stumbles across the room only for the call to end before answering. Call is from John’s new practice manager. We both try to go back to sleep but slowly concern arises. Why would a new practice manager ring John at 1800hrs on an Auckland Saturday??? What catastrophe could have occurred.?? Has the practice burnt down?? Have all the staff left?? Has my locum changed his mind? OK, so the worry quotient goes above sleep level and John rings back. No reply. OK, let’s try a txt. Ah, an answer. It appears that  our lovely new practice manager, was trying to ring her husband, also named John, but got the wrong John. OK, that’s a few brownie points to make up!!

Look who we found at Paris CDG!!

We are both awake now so tidy ourselves up and get packed for the big trip. Breakfast was a full meal at the hotel and then back to CDG. We intend to catch up with Emma who is training down from Bruges via Brussels. On arriving at CDG we realise that we don’t have WIFI so trying to Viber Em to set a meet place just isn’t a happening thing. We set ourselves up near the railway station at CDG and wait. John has a bright idea to do a recee and heads off to a view above the train platforms. Just as he arrives a long train pulls in and very soon a wee waif wearing a huge pack hoves into view. Well, that was easy!! There’s our Em!! So lots of embraces and happy talks and off we go to get our car. Kris is right again as John was about to head off in entirely the wrong direction (Must be his internal magnetic field playing up again). Nice chap swaps our petrol car for a diesel all be it bright purple, called a “Cactus” and pretends to be an off road vehicle while really being a gutless diesel. We then spend the next 20 minutes trying to change the language on the car’s GPS. We had brought our own TomTom GPS as it they were going to charge us E16 per day for one, but now we have one for free. If only it spoke English!

Our wee Cactus

Lunch in the town

 Eventually we get
things sorted and after a couple of circuits trying to get out of the Airport we hit the motorway and off we go. Je t’aime 130kph!! Vroom. Poor little diesel gasping at the pace but soon we are driving like true frogs, zooming in and out of the fast lane and leaving the slow pokes for dead. Nearly got cleaned up by a BMW doing at least 40kph over the 130. Didn’t even spot him in the mirrors. TomTom guides us to a large Supermarket to stock up on bread, wine beer and cheese; all the essentials of life. Lunch is had in a brief green strip in a very industrial wee village with lots of smiles from passing cars, then back onto the motorway again. The total trip was around 6 and half hours and you could feel that Em was wondering what she had let herself into after miles and miles of motorway monotony. Eventually, after an interesting side trip to fill the tank, we leave the motorway and hit the D roads and into vineyard country. Now this is what we are after. Miles and miles of soldiered rows of lush green vines bearing heavy bunches of dark purple berries. We seem to make a zillion turns on ever smaller D roads trusting TomTom implicitly until we reach our destination. Thanks to Google earth street view, John has driven down this road before, spots all the landmarks and pulls up expertly into the driveway of our abode. Just as well as we had very little in the way of direction etc from our host; not even a street address as our house doesn’t have one. Helen, our host, graciously shows us a round and after a meal of tomatoes and pasta washed down with a Grand Cru St Emilion, it is off to bed to dream

Our wee car outside our abode

View to the old barn

Of wine, and cheese and the Boulangerie!