Boning up in Beaune

Monday 28 February – Hotel Campanile – Beaune

Owing to freezing cold winds and driving rain whilst packing the car and trying to leave the house clean and tidy, we found that all the important luggage needed for the overnight ferry was totally buried and even with a last minute trip back to the car deck just before the ferry sailed, the only things that K managed to salvage were towels not provided in the ensuite cabins.

However it was a very comfortable journey and we watched Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower at close quarters as the lights of old Blighty faded into the background. It was at this point that we discovered that the wonderful gismo bought for keeping all the techie stuff charged in the car had not worked and we were racking our brains trying to remember in which bag or box we had packed all the adaptor plugs, power cables and associated jump leads.

The trip down to the Bourgogne took us around the avenue peripheric of Paris (terrifying) and frantic map searching and thinking that we had made a wrong road choice made us turn the car upside down searching for the SatNav to get a better grip of the map system because all our Michelin guides seemed to work on routes which travelled down the centre seam of the book and had three numbers for each road almost at random.

Once at Beaune, we asked the way to the hotel and were given a completely wrong address which was good in the sense that we saw the whole of the very pretty town centre via an intricate combination of one way streets but after an hour or so we got a local map from the Centre du Tourism and only had one foray around the local square and a new improved one way system to get on track.  The hotel was just off the main road on which we had originally entered the town.  Even from the toll roads, the scenery has been fantastic;  lots of bridges over wide rivers and historic castles and turreted maisons built up in the hills. We passed Chateau Neuf and I attempted to take a photo from the car … result distinctly underwhelming!  As this is vine growing country … we are hoping for a very nice glass of vin rouge ce soir!  PS my french needs much more practice but it will be better with some local vintage on board - in addition my computer has cunningly translated blogspot into french - so finding the right buttons to press has been exercising my grey matter!  This blog may be much more of an education than I thought!

Underwhelming photo refused to load - as all my school reports said ... could do better and will try next time.

Mesdames, messieurs, santé and bonsoir!  Check out our coffee choice!

Countdown to take-off

OK so we are now blogging from the laptop.  Finding the input much more tricky than a proper keyboard.  I started my final day of work with croissants, OJ and coffee with my travelling buddies on S W Trains.

The Retirement Do yesterday was nice with a tea party, speeches and pressies.  The new office baby paid a visit to the office for the first time and I was very honoured that the new Bishop attended the party when he was supposed to be taking the whole month off before his new chapter begins at the beginning of March.  It was a lovely day and a good way to finish nearly nine years commuting to central London.  However, when I saw the photos taken with a professional media camera, I wished that I had had a professional makeover before the event.  The thumbnail versions looked so much more acceptable than the close ups!  Hey ho, such is life.

Meanwhile, K had cleared a lot of stuff away and the house was beginning to look very empty apart from the mountain of bags and cases to go in the car.  Will try to take a photo of that packaging process!  Only last minute arrangements to make now and then committing all the stowage places to memory so we can retrieve them later.  Wish us luck on the journey and that our car makes it also that we manage to get the European SatNav working with our dinosaur brains!

MOVE ALONG THERE

A  lorry came and picked up boxes and furniture a few days ago.  Our "20 boxes max" estimation somehow turned into 47!  In the course of the furniture shifting a large wooden screen smashed into the glass lampshades of the ceiling light and an entire cup of tea knocked over the dining room carpet and not discovered until several hours after the load had gone  left a horrible stain that wasn't there before.  Finally the removal men left K struggling to get the front door back on its hinges single-handed whilst they and their lorry disappeared round the corner.  Thank God for neighbours!

The house is now echo-y but we can press on unfettered with a complete clean and shampooing of carpets.

On the work front, I HAVE STUFFED MY LAST BROWN ENVELOPE - and thinking it would be a champagne moment, I was surprised to find that there was a sense of unreality about life right now.  Here we are in the last few days in the UK with heaps of stuff to organise - insurance/bills to be paid/family to be visited before setting off and so much to sort out and get rid of. 

There is a farewell party at the weekend but my party clothes are currently speeding across Europe by lorry ..... !!!