Tern for the better

Today looked more promising. Our little birdies were likely to fly... tomorrow.

Meryl and Barry headed off early to Le Bugue to achieve the reregistration of their car. I took a change of some time alone to do some blog typing and to make my way up to the top of the town to extract some money from the ATM. This was a surprisingly painless process. 

I had been quite clever in preparation for this trip, and purchased a special card wallet at Aldi. It's shielded so no-one can electronically skim your details by brushing up against you in a crowd. The only problem is, I haven't worked out the latch yet, so when I need to pay, I can't open it. However, i've found that a reliable method is to accidentally drop it on the ground, and it will spew the cards everywhere. This is what I did in Credit Agricole. Parfait!

To open wallet, just drop on hard surface.
(re-enactment- card numbers have been obscured to protect the innocent)

Things have really improved in the last five years in terms of ease of travel, exchange of money, access to Internet et cetera. France is really coming into the modern age.


But here's some proof that it's not fully there yet.

Yep, a sundial. That's how they do it here.
Banking hours aren't indicated.

There's some sort of weird timewarp happening here: it's not very far between breakfast and lunch, and then suddenly it's dinner time. At some stage you realise that you have felt full virtually all day. This is not good but I cannot stop. whatever! .

There's also a phenomenon that seems to be part of jetlag that involves a quick and sudden neurological shutdown. This happened in the middle of the afternoon. Mary had a snooze, but I struggled and managed to stay awake. As suddenly as it came upon me, the tiredness left and I was "zinging" again. 

Today I discovered that my repair of the seatpost base of the bicycles wasn't up to the engineering standards required and it quickly rebroke when I tried to rethread the post stopholder into the post.  I decided it was worth another try, but eventually we will have to buy a replacement part from Tern. This part is important because it prevents the pump from falling out onto the ground as you ride.

Repair, take 2. This was in 2 pieces after the baggage handling.
My forensic analysis of damage to the bikes leads to only one conclusion- there was a
baggage handler who ran amok with a tomahawk. I've notified the airline.

Talking of riding, we were yet to do any. Had we brought our bikes halfway across the world for nothing?

That evening we had a visit from our wonderful friends from the top of the hill, so we chatted about New York and US politics, Tony Abbott and his destructive policies, music, aboriginal health, and the amazing performance we had witnessed yesterday. More good food, good discussion and wonderful evening balcony views. Ahh, Le France!

It's a big mistake to play any word games against a highly competitive sibling and her son. That's all I have to say about this game called banana gram. Bed in preparation for early morning