Doubting Thomas - Saturday 16th August

Jean and Priss - it looks like a race to the finish line!


I’m sure you’ve had one of those days when you find yourself wondering if you really did turn off the gas, lock the front door and remember to leave a note for the milkman. We are having one of those days.

For three nights in a row I have suffered horrible backache and I am now eyeing the new mattress and wondering if it really is the root of the problem. I know full well that I slept on it quite happily for two weeks without backache and I also know that I have been weeding, digging, lifting and shifting things all week which would naturally give me backache. One happy outcome is that we have discovered that you CAN buy Nurofen Plus from the pharmacie and it does the trick, so ibroprofen isn’t on the banned list in France after all.

Jean is doubting his computer skills at this moment and is pouring over the manual of the new telephone system, suddenly filled with fear that he might not have installed the internet connection correctly. He knows that he has been told by the Customer Services people that their system shows that the trouble is on their line, but there’s just that niggling doubt that maybe, just maybe it is our fault.

One thing that we have absolutely no doubt about is that we have done the right thing in coming to France. We might have to tighten our belts a bit and tread a little carefully on the financial front, but it is so well worth it. Our borrowed car might clatter and stutter and maybe we can’t afford to blow a lot of cash on the garden, but we have a car and we have a garden and we have our own front door. The very thought of being back in the apartment in Miami is enough to give me a swift dose of claustrophobia and I doubt I will ever be able to live seventeen stories off the ground ever again.

Knowing that our chances of getting a phone connection today were minimal, we drove along to our familiar spot at Sabblasou tram/car park and rode the tram into Montpellier. We have discovered that we can get within 200 yards of the internet café by sitting tight on the Number 2 line which goes all the way to the Gare St Roch which is the main line station. The tram ride is so easy and we managed to get front seats today on the return journey and it’s quite a kick whizzing up the grass road in which the tracks are embedded.

The Moroccan guys who run the café greeted us with familiar warmth and I think they start to see a bit of a regular pattern appearing. At least Jean managed to get his own laptop linked to the system which meant that he could do vital things like check our bank balances and juggle the funds a bit, and I cleared the emails and reassured everyone that we were still alive and kicking but just not connected yet.

We’ve been invited for a drink with Jean’s daughter this evening. She is due to deliver her babe in about two weeks time and must be feeling like an unexploded bomb right now. I think he’s going to be a seven pounder and she can no longer fit behind the wheel of her car and is more than ready to have him on the outside. We’ll go via Marco the Pizza Man and fetch a couple of Four Seasons to go with the drinks, and I reckon we will be making a fairly early night of it.

I told you yesterday that we were forced to take action against the ants, but I’ve just been and checked up on them, and all they have done is open the back door to their home and set up another supply route. This time I stood and watched carefully to make sure that nobody was carrying spinach seed on his back, and since they all appeared to be clean, I resisted giving them another dousing with ant powder. I am terrified that they might all have been little Buddhist monks at one time and I hate killing anything.

Jean is a bit disappointed that there isn’t an orderly queue of customers waiting to use his bird table, but I am quite sure that they are sussing it out from the safely of the nearby trees and will avail themselves of our hospitality very soon. He has put Ralph out there as a sort of welcoming committee but I don't know if the sight of a bright blue and orange plastic bird is going to bring them flocking in. Poor thing might get pecked and beaten up and I think I am going to rescue him and bring him back to the safety of his little blue house.

Doubting Thomas got on the line to Customer Services again and dare we say it but there appears to be a slight reason for optimism. The lady stated quite clearly that the fault had now been found at a main box some distance away from us and they had started work on the problem on Thursday, but sadly they were unable to finish before the Public holiday overtook them. (So much for working 24/7) Since things are now at a standstill for the weekend, we are assured that on Monday they are returning to the scene of the problem with all guns blazing and she feels sure that we will be connected by the end of the day. One good thing is that Jean feels re-assured that the fault was nothing to do with him. He said earlier today that if he found that we could have been on line all this time, he would have reason to shoot himself so I am happy to hear that there is a stay of execution and all we can do is hope.

We had planned to go and have Sunday lunch with Mamy tomorrow up at Ledignan but circumstances beyond our control have forced us to delay our date until Tuesday which means that tomorrow is ours to do with as we please. Of course, it also means that if we are connected on Monday and Jean can start on his mountainous backlog, we are going to have to stop work as soon as we get started and go up to Ledignan. Never mind; just to be able to sit in our easy chairs on the terrace and work on our laptops and do what needs to be done instead of trundling in and out of Montpellier will be great, and in future we can leave visits to that lovely city for outings of a more exciting nature.

6.00pm and we set out for Assas to visit Priscilla, Damien and Carol Lynn but before we got there, we needed to get hold of a couple of pizzas. We had tried phoning Marco the Pizza Man on his cell phone but only got a message to say that he wasn’t taking orders yet. For all we knew, he had closed up shop and gone away for the weekend like the rest of France, so leaving a slightly hopeful message on his machine, we drove down through Castries looking for somewhere open. The traffic in town was horrendous and we had only just succeeded in making it through to the far end when the phone rang and it was Marco ready and willing to take orders. Luckily the phone rang just as we were about to go halfway round a roundabout and leave the area, so I did a complete circuit and doubled back through yet more traffic and headed home.

With half an hour to spare while Marco worked his magic, we walked up to the church just in time to see the bride and groom and entire wedding party emerging from the ancient St Jean du Moulin church. Lots of dear little girls in fluffy white dresses sat on the church steps while an anxious photographer tried to get everyone lined up for the group photo. The main problem was that someone had left a car parked right in front of the church that was clearly spoiling the effect but fortunately the priest appeared and cheerfully climbed in and moved it. With traffic held up in both directions, the wedding party cheered and waved their arms in the air and the bride and groom kissed, and then with a great deal of hooting and shaking of ribbons, the crowds headed off for the reception. We legged it back to Marco’s just down the road to retrieve our order just in case any of the wedding guests had worked up an appetite in church and jumped the queue.

Assas turned out to be rather a nice surprise. I think we were expecting something of a dormitory town with it being relatively close to Montpellier, but it turned out to be yet another lovely old country village with narrow streets and pretty gardens. Priscilla and Damien had found themselves a very nice little Granny Flat tucked away on the edge of town with enough garden to satisfy their delightful boxer dog Sapho. Priscilla is coming to the boil quickly and has already had the early stage contractions that signify that our grandson is on his way. However, she was undaunted, and after we had eaten the pizza and admired the photos of his early foetal progress thanks to the wonders of modern science, we drove back home, giving them the opportunity to tidy up and then get to the St Drezery fete.

I asked Priss if she intended to dance but she laughed and said that she would be sitting this one out, but it would be probably her last chance to get together with all the pals before becoming a Mum. I think they are going to make excellent parents, and with Sapho already cast as the twin brother, they are going to be a happy little band. Only one slight concern is that the house move is scheduled for the 1st September and her due date is around the same time. Perhaps she can stay peacefully in hospital while everyone else moves the furniture.

It was such a lovely evening that we took advantage of a parking spot on the edge of St Drezery en route home, and walked through the village to check out the fun. Apart from a rather bored confused bull who was being urged to chase the requisite number of daring young men in the central village square, nothing much was going on if you didn’t feel like propping up the bar, so we walked through the old narrow village streets and found our way back to the car and headed home.

I forgot to mention that while waiting for the last five minutes while the pizza reached perfection, we popped over the road to the cemetery to make sure that the cactus plants were happy and that the new red geranium hadn’t decamped. Everything was as it should be and it occurred to me that during the course of the evening, we had checked out “Hatched, Matched and Dispatched” fairly successfully.