A surprisingly frustrating journey!

Mrs Davey has taken flight to England, to Burgess Hill, to the celebration of our brother-il-law's 70th birthday. Yes. 70th. Oh la la.

So 15h found us scuttling through Pessac to get Carys the Yaris to drive off to the airport.

When we arrived I cast a glance round Carys and found - a long scrape down her side. Yikes!

This means phoning the Car Pool Club.

I had to do this once before - I found someone had clouted her bumper - and it's always frustrating. For a start you get put through to an operator in a call centre somewhere and they can never find the parking place in their system.

"La Gare de Pessac? Non, je ne le trouve pas..."

"Ben, de toute façon il n'y a qu'un seul stationnement à Pessac, alors si vous trouvez Pessac vous avez trouvé l'endroit."

I tried not to sound exasperated. The thing was, Mrs Davey had a plane to catch.

"La longueur? Je dirais 50 cm." I think it was longer, in fact. Anyway, as long as they know.

Eventually all necessary info was given and we got underway. I'd allowed 30 minutes to get to the airport and we'd used 16 of them already. Oh dear.

How's the ring road? Clogged. OK, we'll go by the back roads.

We got to the airport at about 15:45.

Two minutes after Pat got through security they announced the departure gate and she got happily onto the plane.

Boy, it's quiet in this house!



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