Our last 48 hours in France has been trés interesant. As usual!
Returning the car to Bergerac after 17 days without and incident was looking good.

But, when we arrived in Bergerac it was market day and it was huge. I drove around trying to find us a park and after two aborted attempts, I found one that looked pretty easy BUT I ended up scraping the dress rim pretty badly. This cost me $50 for one cheap hub cap! Cé la vie. Michael is looking pretty happy in this photo with Cyrano de Bergerac, but there had been a few different faces on both our parts after the incident with the car.

We were able to check into our hotel which was very basic after our luxury apartment, but it was so wonderfully close to the railway station for our trip in the morning, so we were prepared to rough it a little.

The sky opened up and it poured for the next 12 hours. This cramped our options a little. We went down to an adjoining bar for a wine and were met by a very drunk Camaroonian owner who talked about wanting 100 children and asking me to return to dance with him. He was obviously blind as well as “blind”!

I had read fabulous reviews about the restaurant in the hotel we were staying in, so we headed down for a drink at the barat 7pm. The restaurant opened at 7.30pm. It was interesting to see the chef and his staff all sit down to a meal in the bar before the restaurant opened. Dinner was mostly fabulous, but it wasted being kept waiting at times while the waitress had her smoke break. The aperitifs were extra yummy and gave us some ideas for our next dinner guests.

While we were enjoying our dinner, I noticed a lot of activity at the railway station with buses and railway staff and people wandering around the place, and started to worry a little about there being a problem for us tomorrow. We have had previous experience with French train strikes in 2007.

The sun came out for us as we headed across to the Gare, earlier than we needed to which tuned out to be very wise. Yes, there was a problem with the trains and after a few questions to the station manager, we worked out our train was not going to run, but luckily for us and the other 20 or so passengers, there was a bus for us to use. The trip was longer, but at least we did end up in Bordeaux before lunch.

We checked our luggage into storage at the railway station and spent a few pleasant hours in Bordeaux.

Our next shock involved a last minute change to the airport bus stop, which we found out as the bus wizzed past us and our luggage. But, we ended up catching the slower option and made it to the airport in time because, you guessed it, our plane was delayed.

However, we are now safely in Ampthill, England and I have caught up with three of my sisters and two of my brothers-in-law. We are off out to dinner tonight. Should be fun.