Frayssinet-le-Gelat

Bordeaux to Frayssinet-le-Gelat

By 9.30am, we were up, breakfasted and ready to collect our car at 10am. Lorelle and Kiryn walked across to the Avis office while Elizabeth and I waited in the lobby with the luggage. Lorelle and Kiryn soon returned carless. Apparently, we had booked the car for 12 noon, not 10am as we had thought, and we couldn’t have it one minute earlier ( without payment) even though we are returning it 2 days earlier! We finally left at 1.25pm and arrived at Frayssinet-le-Gelat just before 4.30 stopping at a Carrefours supermarche in Agen to stock up on supplies- wine, champagne (4 for 16.20 euro!), vodka, cheese, foie gras, rhubarb jam and yoghurt for me; the essentials for everyone else!

Frayssinet-le-Gelat

www.marymoody.com.au

Mary Moody's  (author of Au Revoir) house is a delight, but cold! Friggin’ freezing actually. It hasn’t been lived in for a couple of months and the cold has seeped into its bones which it very soon did to ours. Although the shed is well stocked with logs, there is no paper or kindling of any description to get it going. Brrrrr! I put on a load of washing while Kiryn cooked a yummy risotto for dinner, which we washed down wit a bottle of Bordeaux. We have been left a bottle of the local Cahors wine which we will be sure to polish off before the end of our stay.

I tried valiantly to connect to the wi-fi without success- I tried every password possible- so not only do we have no internet access, none of our phones have service either! Incommunicado! I am devastated. I called Colin who let us in and he was no help at all and today I have called the computer guy who set up the wi-fi and left messages but he is yet to get back to me. I asked Colin to email Mary to ask her for the password, but he is yet to hear back from her.

Finally went to bed and tried to get warm. Impossible. The cold was emanating upwards from the mattress. It felt like I was trying to sleep on a bed of hyacinths in a freezing pond and sinking all the time into the cold mass of water. I usually warm up when I snuggle into bed, but it just didn’t happen. I finally fell asleep still cold and woke up at 5.30am. I thought it might be warmer downstairs with the oil heater warming up the room, but alas, Elizabeth had turned it off before she came to bed!

On it went to maximum and on went my coats and the hot water bottle and the oven and the kettle! Lorelle came down frozen too, so I was pleased I wasn’t the only one suffering. I think she may have been even colder than I was! We proceeded to drink tea for the next couple of hours to try to warm up (estimate of at least 6 cups each, so you know where I have spent the rest of the day!) while counting the number of trucks that rumbled past. We stopped counting at 25 and it was only 8.30am! Mary’s house is near the crossroads between Cahors, Villefranche, Cazals, Bergerac, Caprais and Gourdon!

As soon as there was enough light to see outside, Lorelle set about getting the fire going. She collected some kindling and sent me to the little supermarche to get some newspaper. I came back with some old cardboard boxes, which we managed to tear up in small enough pieces to get the fire going.

Kiryn headed off to the boulangerie to buy some fresh bread for lunch and returned with two loaves of beautiful fresh bread which we hungrily devoured with fois gras, cheese, salad and left-over risotto.

So I am just sitting here without phone, without internet, beside the home phone waiting for it to ring with information on the password. Everyone is reading and/or listening to music. I might watch one of the movies Stacey’s downloaded to my laptop!

Obviously the phone did eventually ring. The computer technician explained we had to press the 1 button on the back of the modem just before logging in to the wi-fi. So here I am now catching up with posting all my blogs which I've mostly written on train trips from Switzerland, through Spain to France. Now that we have a car for 2 weeks, I may not be so long-winded and boring, but it did make the train journeys pass more quickly.

The fire...can you feel the warmth?

Mary's House- living area- ground floor, bedrooms- second floor, and you don't want to go in the attic but I had to as that is where the clothes dryer is located!

The busy intersection- trucks rumble through constantly- I think I am used to it already

Frayssinet-le-Gelat

The church on the opposite corner

I am sitting here, toasty and warm, in front of a brilliant log fire, thanks to Lorelle, having an early morning cuppa ( leaving the hard stuff until later) before heading off  to Rocamadour as soon as everyone wakes up.