The bell in the cabin started ringing at at 0500 and so we dragged ourselves out of bed and had a shower and then off to for a breakfast, well you could have bacon and eggs etc etc but at 0530 in the morning its not good and so Noel had a petit pan ( small white bread) and Jennifer a raison something or other with a cup of tea which the serving lady dropped the lot on the floor just prior giving it to me, this should have been a warning of problems to come.
By about 0715 local time we were off the ship but the the French Immigration staff seemed to have gone AWOL as we waited in line with no movement for about 45 minutes and then started to creep forward at a very slow rate indeed. I am sure some people would blame BREXIT for this but no its the French Immigration who do like working at this port as there are no problems like this at Le Havre or Cherbourg or St Malo and when we got closer to the Immigration booths it became clear why the the delay as there are five booths but only two were sort of working…quite appalling really.
However at around 0830 we were heading south and there was a large bang and rattle , rattle noise and some lights came on the car??? we pulled off the main road via slipway which was very close and discovered we must have driven over something and had a puncture in the the rear nearside wheel. Damn or something like that. This car has one of these small temporary wheels which I tried to change but I could not move the nuts. However whilst standing and pondering what to do next a French registered car stopped and out an English couple who live nearby en -route to the local rubbish dump and stopped to see if they could offer any help. This was really nice of them as they went to a couple of local garages which they knew nearby only to discover one was closed and the other had only one guy working and so he could not leave. The English guy also had a go at trying to move the wheel nuts but it was no go and so Noel called the Lexus assist Europe for some help and they said it would take about 60-90 minutes for them to get somebody to us, oh well all we can do is wait.
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A few minutes later a French car pulled up and he started to help then pointed out that I had the car jack in the wrong location which is easy to do as I could not get down on the floor due to my knees and so he corrected this and after a few minutes we discovered that he was a tyre mechanic and he changed the tyre and told us where to go toe het a new tyre. Just hen he had finished the English couple had returned still trying to find assistance and then the Lexus support truck turned up and so we had to explain what happened,. So off we went a few miles down the road to Falaise where they checked the tyre and it was repairable and it would seem that whatever had hit the tyre an punctured it had entered and left leaving a nice clear hole which they could fix and did for 36 Euros.
We were hungry know and it was 1200 ish and about ten minutes away there was a Leclerc supermarket where we purchased some sandwiches, mine on a baguette was the most disgusting I have ever had and decided to not to eat.. So off we travelled South and changed our plans and hit the motorways to save time as original plan with eight hours to fill before Hotel check in and a slow drive were now out of the window.
We reached the Design Hotel Des Frans Garcons in a small town outside of Saintes where we had stayed some 9 years ago and forgot how many steps there in this place . Its still a nice and different hotel but if you have waling issues then its really not for you.
After briefly unpacking we sat by the pool in the 33 C temperature and had a beer and then went for a swim and the water was not heated and so quite a shock to the system when you first get in. Dinner was to be served by the pool and I had forgotten the hotel only serves food for its guests and only has a very small menu but Noel found something that should be able to eat which was a beef carpaccio but without any onions or garlic please which was delivered accordingly only was not to be.
We ordered a bottle o red wine which Noel only had one small glass ( that is by Noels standards) and some cheese to finish whilst Jen had the same. BY 1100 that night Noel knew that something was wrong as he spend five hours on the loo with bad diahrea which means they perhaps did not use a clean pan but who knows. So all in all not a good start to the holiday.
