September 16

Up at 6am we readied ourselves for a taxi at 7am to take us to the airport. I was still too tired after a week in Islay to think about breakfast but did have a cup of Jane’s wonderful coffee. Unfortunately, the taxi was on time and we said our farewells to the Cannon clan, knowing we would not see them again for some time.

Oh, did I mention it was still “dreich”? It was. The checking in and security was swift and easy at GLA. Our flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris was on EasyJet, a UK discount carrier of the ilk of Southwest in the US. Susie calls it SleazyJet. Nice, Susie, thanks. Our flight was delayed a half-hour but we were soon off and offered food and beverages, for a slight fee, well not so slight. Since there was nothing we wanted to eat or drink, we passed.

We now figuratively will remove our kilt and don our beret for 10 days in France.

On arrival at CDG in Paris we went through customs and collected our baggage easily, if certainly not rapidly. On to car rental. Where in the Hell is car rental? A sign might have been nice. CDG makes LAX look like a commuter airport. In exasperation, we ask two people in broken French and getting the answer in broken English found it - after a half hour. Waiting in line at EuropCar for another half hour got us the ability to stand in front of the happy, smiling woman behind the counter. Ok, that was a lie. She was neither and to add to that we spent a half hour with her – AND THERE WERE NO PROBLEMS! Ah, the Parisians. So easy to dislike. Hoping to leave the airport in our car at 12:15, we finally left the airport at 2:30. Ouch.

On to Rouen. One slight miscalculation headed us in the wrong direction. Instead of leaving Paris in the direction north of, say, 10 o’clock on the clock face we left at a direction of 2 o’clock. After 30 minutes we were further from Rouen that when we started. Now this would have not been so embarrassing if we DID NOT HAVE A GPS navigation in our car-- but we did. (We always order the smallest, cheapest compact available for the two of us hoping for the usual upgrade but we scored a Toyota Avensis with GPS!). Not knowing how it worked since there was no manual, we had not bothered using it.

So, the next order of business was to figure this darn GPS thingy out now that we had screwed things up so miserably. Changing the language from French to English helped more than a little!

It came to our attention that Ann had not eaten since 6:30am this morning and I had not eaten since Café Gandolfi the previous night. To say we were bitchy and cranky at each other would be no slight understatement – it was now 4pm. As we drove through farmland with few towns and fewer open restaurants, we found a gas station and bought a packaged sandwich to split, a coke and chips in their tiny, tiny 7-11 type cashier area. This helped a little but we still were not really polite.

After previously yelling at each other over any mistake in direction giving and direction taking, we found our sweet GPS lady with a cultured British accent so easy to understand. She never got angry when I made a wrong turn. She just recalculated and gave me new directions both visibly and orally. I really liked “her”. Ann said she loved “her” - that being a little scary on several levels.

We made it to our B&B in Cantelou, a few minutes from Rouen. Exhausted, we had to venture into town to see the Cathedral of Rouen and find dinner – food! Dinner was a gallette, a crepe with cheese and ham for me and fried egg, mushroom, ham and cheese inside for Ann. A demi litre of a rose complimented a meal we were both too tired to eat. Somehow, we arrived back at the B&B and mercifully fell into bed. The day was finally over.