Mini Missive 22 - Time is once more my master - albeit briefly!

September 2010

Dear All

No time to chat, but as Vicky’s Updates have finished lots of spare time to read this missive!!

Hopefully, you will find Missive 22 attached which explains all!!

Love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

Time is once again my master ~ albeit briefly!! Mini Missive 22

“To choose time is to save time!”
Francis Bacon – oh no it’s him again! More about him to follow in the future!!

“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”
A rather apt Japanese proverb as we are spending time catching up with family and friends!

The bare bones of the full unexpurgated version of this missive was there, just not the time to meet the “end of the month deadline,” with visits here there and everywhere, the odd DIY project (helping to tile some of Daniel and Lisa’s kitchen) and the odd Pet Shop delivery to make. Yes, we’re back in York, and due to major problems with the car (thankfully being sorted out by Linda’s nephew who is a master mechanic and comes cheaper than Vauxhall!!) we are staying longer than originally planned. This together with dental work, for us both, that is to be done back in Stroud next week, it’s proving to be an expensive visit back to “dear old blighty!” So, with all this activity this month’s missive is to be really no more than a brief (relatively!!) diary entry!

Our first few days lulled us into a false sense of security, as the warm Vendée sunshine followed us over La Manche, but now the weather that we try to forget about and the French regularly talk about, has caught up with us and it’s cold, wet, windy and miserable. People often ask us what we miss about England, funnily enough the weather rarely features in our short list: family, friends, beer and bacon!! But, it’s good to be back and catch up with people particularly Victoria who as readers of her “China Update’s” will know has returned from her Far Eastern ventures and as always has much to say, now a good deal of it in Mandarin Chinese!! We had also seen even less of Daniel and Lisa during this time, as he’s too busy to Skype, usually occasionally telephoning instead!

Debris in the road

We had largely a good journey back, leaving as we often do in the wee small hours, to get to the early morning ferry – this time from Roscoff to Plymouth, an expensive crossing but as we were heading towards Plymouth and our reunion with Victoria, it saved lots of miles, petrol and more importantly time! We did however, again, manage to hit some debris in the road – this time a large remould tyre that had come off a lorry, which although fortunately not causing an accident did manage to bring an engine management light on and subsequently require a new exhaust heat sensor, quick to fit but a snip at £106!!!

It was slightly strange, as we hadn’t seen Victoria for nearly 7 months, but due to Skype technology had actually “seen” more of her via webcam during the preceding months than we would normally do when she is in England, so the we were not totally surprised to find she had lost some weight, but it was good to give her a hug, something that computer technology hasn’t yet perfected!!

Victoria had planned to meet us off the ferry, but had discovered on her return that her course had started for real on the induction day, which was not a one off as she had thought, so barely had she landed back in the UK before she was once more embarking on the next college journey. But after a hasty scrabble to get her pre-course work completed she is now sailing along well and looking forward to her first placement in a Plymstock school that she has already visited twice before, when doing presentations in her role as Projects Abroad Plymouth Rep!

A good couple of days with Dermot and Victoria, including a delicious Chinese banquet she prepared using recipes and skills taught to her by Bee, her Chinese teacher when she was in Weinan, and shopping for essentials; Fairy Liquid, Shower Gel, Disinfectant Spray, Paracetamol, Spices, Bras and much more from greatly missed emporiums such as, Wilkinsons, The Range, and Primark!! Basically, some things just aren’t available or don’t come cheap in France, much to the amusement of customs on our way home!! Then we headed up to Gloucestershire for the first “Vendée Vintner” drop off!! Visitors who have flown in during the summer have taken advantage of us having a nearly empty car for our holiday in the UK, so much so that the nearly empty car became a nearly full car!!

Further pieces on the route

Not, I must hastily add, suggesting any of the following to be debris, just the flotsam and jetsam of life’s rich flow – not sure it that’s much better!! Next stop was my Mum and Dad’s to unload much of the car and a brief cup of tea, then over to Stroud to see Daniel and Lisa and to check out the tiling job and having told them that tiling was really easy, perhaps we hadn’t banked on 10 centimetre square tiles with random wiggly edges, which at the corners completely threw out the spacers, thus rendering them impossible to use!

The next day coffee in Mill’s Café, our favourite in Stroud, to meet up with various friends and to surprise others who chanced upon us, surprised as they thought we were still in France – it’s difficult to let everyone know our plans and where we will be when, not least because we’re not always sure!! But if we were lucky enough to bump into you, it was great to catch up on all the news!

Tiling was on the agenda for the following day and the one after if needed, fitted in around a luncheon invite with more friends and further talking and news gleaning!

Dental appointments also featured somewhere along the line, which necessitated further “second mortgage applications!!” And, with the tiles and grout successfully completed, (were filling teeth so easy you could DIY!) and we were once more on the road, heading north this time with York and Linda’s family firmly in our sights.

Arriving safely, the car was condemned largely due to a damaged tyre – a small nick obviously caused by hitting the debris and we were into the next round of catching up with everyone’s news, whilst suffering from increasing shock as the bill for the car grew at an alarming rate!! It also meant that we had to extend our stay to allow what was a long job to be completed, before the long journey south. But, it did give us even more time to see people, shop for life’s essentials in the form of more spices that we hadn’t managed to get before and as some of the family were off to the Norfolk Broads a few days after we arrived, a chance to reacquaint myself with the Pet Shop boys. This involved a few transactions, help lugging out the hutches and bird tables that are each day displayed outside the shop, a bit of sweeping and mopping at the end of the day, as well as just a few deliveries – although not a gender realignment or deaf old lady in sight. I was however, met at one house in the middle of the afternoon by a young lady in bedroom attire, but before you jump to any assumptions, she was wearing thick fleecy pyjamas and a thick tightly fastened fleecy dressing gown – would it have been different for the regular delivery boy I found myself wondering!!!

In order to make the end of month deadline, that’s it for now, but we still have a couple of weeks of our visit left, so who knows what adventures are ahead!!

Shakespeare

Mention of the great bard and Francis Bacon in the same missive is not unplanned, much thought and preparation go into these humble offerings!! Much as it might seem like these literary ramblings gems are thrown together, this summer both the aforementioned have featured largely as well as coincidentally, in our lives, but for the full explanation, you will have to wait for the next missive (see below), or if you can’t wait and want a flavour visit Wikipedia and type in Francis Bacon, or if you want the whole meal, follow the many and varied leads and links, but be prepared, if you like tales of mystery and intrigue, to get hooked.

Just however, time and space to record the latest of many such coincidences. In York yesterday, passing “The Works” we were inexplicably drawn into the shop, only to find the first book I saw was a copy of Bill Byson’s “Shakespeare.” Obviously, another sign and yet another piece of an ever increasing jigsaw!!

People

Along the way you are forever meeting all kinds of people, but we seem to have an uncanny knack of attracting interesting characters, be it M. from the chateau (lots more about him next time – by popular request!!) or the, am I allowed to say “oddball?” who struck up a conversation with us at the bus stop yesterday! Her opening line was something to do with how the world was “full of sucking (sic) people of all sorts, some sucking drug takers and the like!” She went on to say that all such sucking people should be allowed on the bus and only those people who sucking smell horrible should be made to get off the bus. Her philosophy of life then continued along the lines of unless you were fortunate enough to be a private car owner and could therefore choose who to travel with, you should accept that people are all different and put up with sharing the bus with all sorts, unless of course they smell! Our wholehearted agreement was unfortunately stretched as; when we got on the bus we choose to sit some distance from her!! I then thought that perhaps her “sucking monologues,” seemingly for the benefit of anyone who would listen, had probably got her thrown off the last bus and the injustice of it, for as far as I could tell she didn’t smell! Despite not sitting next to her, my thoughts were far more charitable than those of my travelling partner who suggested that she had possibly just been thrown out of a mental institution (here we probably have to blame the present coalition government for another hatchet job!). I couldn’t help feeling that for whatever reason, for her life obviously sucks!

My original “thought!”

Unfortunately, my rather ancient mobile phone has succumbed to age and started to function erratically, just like its owner I hear you all think and I say before you can!!! So in order to stay in touch with all my many followers!!!, a new and cheap phone was needed. Tescos came to the rescue, helped by staff discount, and I now have a new £19 phone, which a few days before had been sold for £14!! Apart from the possible ethical issues, how can a small slim line phone have the following “key features:” MP3 player, FM Radio, Camera, video recording, long life battery mobile tracker, SOS message and Bluetooth as well as operate as a phone and be produced for so little? Mind you it nearly went back, as I got to the last of 20 preset ringtones before I found one I could live with!! But then a younger, more technologically minded, family member told me I could always Bluetooth any number of other ringtones!! I fancy Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” but think it will only happen if someone else does it their way!!

But one quick final thought, not attributable to me, but rather someone unknown! “We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet!”

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,

Roger and Linda

And maybe to come next time? Hopefully I’ll be back on track with “The Summer of Content” maybe including such gems as “The Bard – Is this a ghost I see before me!” “Sizzling sun at Royan” and “Further Soggy Adventures!” if we’ve dried out by then!!