Want to start from the beginning?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Interlude I recommend that you read this before going much further into this story.
We spent the last night in France with two wonderful people. We’re so lucky to know Andy & Reina and if it wasn’t for motorcycles, we’d never have met them.
Cheers!
Next morning, bright and early, we had to get up and set off again. Andy and Reina both greeted us for breakfast and waved us off on our return-leg of the trip. We packed in a LOT of travelling on that weekend.
We made it back to the port in time to grab a fast-food meal before the boat left. Oh-oh… the ordering communicator device is on the wrong side. I had to order our food!
Panic set in. I forgot everything I had learned at the French lessons we’d been taking every Tuesday for a few weeks. Nope! Mind is a blank!
I tried speaking in a clear and confident manner and the woman on the other side of the communicator asked, “English?”
‘Oh good!’ I thought. ‘Someone speaks English!’
No such luck! She panicked and asked her colleagues for help!
Eventually, we received our food and only had to pick off a few of the inedibles, so we called it a win!
We also saw a guard dog as we travelled round to the restaurant. A very bouncy and eager Malinois! Our puppy would look something like that, one day.
So sweet and innocent - so destructive!
The voyage back home was a little more full than our journey to France. People everywhere, some with masks, some without. We tried to avoid everyone!
When we landed, we pulled into the first petrol station (gas station), filled up with fuel and food and made our way home. We phoned Dani and told her we’d landed, but wouldn’t ring again until the morning so we didn’t disturb her. All well and good!
Despite the roads being relatively clear, we did encounter a few morons. One particular idiot in a large van couldn’t keep a constant speed (or anything like it) and we overtook him as he slowed down. Almost immediately, he sped up and overtook us. He pulled in front, barely missing the front of our car and slowed down again.
Trev checked the road around us, indicated and overtook him again. Trev was using the cruise-control and didn’t have to accelerate to overtake. We started leaving him behind and we continued on our way.
He overtook us again, but kept in the lane to the side (multiple lane road). He kept looking over at us and I’m not sure what bugged him about us or the car, but he didn’t seem happy about something.
He pulled into the lane we were in and again, slowed down. Trev overtook him almost immediately. I took out my phone, despite the fact that we have a dash-cam, and I recorded him as we passed. He saw my phone and started pointing and shouting. We left him a long way behind us at last and thought that was the end of it.
Video link
This video shows the guy overtake, pull in and brake. His actions were strange, but not dangerous at that time.
“He’s coming up again,” Trev said.
I took out my phone again. That guy was not a happy bunny! He leaned over to the passenger side, looking forward from time to time. He used one hand to point at us and I’m pretty sure he believed we could hear what he was yelling. And then when Trev and I started laughing at his antics, he became more irate.
Trev touched the clutch to drop the car out of cruise control mode and he shot past us as our car was no longer maintaining speed. We kept a long way back to allow him to move along. He slowed down. We’d be travelling all night long if we continued at that speed.
We were travelling at perhaps 40-45MPH on a 70MPH road and catching that van up. When we were quite close, Trev switched lanes and accelerated. The sporty Ford Fiesta ST is very nippy and we left him way behind as we got up to speed.
The van was WAY behind, but Trev kept an eye on the headlights in the rear-view mirror.
“He’s closing in,” he said. That guy had to be breaking the speed limit to catch us. I just hope the speed cameras were working.
We were approaching a ‘herd’ of traffic and the van driver’s antics would be dangerous in those circumstances. He sat at the side of us, despite other cars on the road, making sure we’d get stuck behind slower-moving vehicles, and unable to overtake because he’d penned us in.
At the last-possible (yet still safe) moment, Trev indicated and took the exit ramp off the motorway. The van driver slammed on his brakes as if to try to follow us, but it was too late, he’d gone past the exit ramp. Other cars around him braked too, but thankfully, there were no accidents.
I’m still puzzled by that guy’s behaviour.
We swapped drivers at a few points on our return journey, pulling into service areas and always keeping an eye out for large white vans, just in case he found us and tried the lunacy again.
Home at last! The dogs were pleased to see us! The cats were nonchalant. I was pleased to see them – and my bed!
The next morning, we set about agreeing to buy the property. One more step on our new adventure!
Planning for Christmas in the Pandemic would be an anti-climax, I believed. The news about proposed lock-downs being lifted for Christmas didn’t fill me with hope. Protecting Danielle was our priority at that time. As one of her carers, I had to make sure I didn’t come into contact with anyone with Covid, so when our son had to isolate because one of his young family had a positive test, it meant we were all spending Christmas alone.
Next Christmas will be better, we hoped! All together, spending the holidays in France in our new house.
New Year, still isolated but hopeful. Things moving on at a glacial pace, we at least had our offer in, but waiting for it to be accepted was agony!
Now, in this age of technology and scientific breakthrough, superstition, coincidence and myth can be looked at differently to how our ancestors viewed things.
Bear in mind a few things, however, and you see patterns.
My birthday 3rd December – the first day we were allowed to travel and the day we set off to look at the house.
Trev’s birthday 25th January – the day the deposit went through for the house.
The date Trev and I started seeing each other 12th April – the day before everything was signed and finalised. OK, OK, we missed the trifecta by one day, but semantics!
A few years ago, a similar thing happened. Dani took me out for my birthday to a spa, just me and her. She received a call saying she’d been awarded her insurance claim for the drunk-driver that ran her over. She received the settlement on Trev’s birthday and she took us both on holiday with her around our anniversary. None of it was planned, it just happened that way.
Anyway… coincidence? The Universe moving in mysterious ways? I don’t mind what the explanation is, the fact of the matter is – WE OWN A HOUSE IN FRANCE!
Visitors welcome!
