Tag Archives: Libourne

Home again

I hate the journey home.  If it weren’t for our local island-hopping carrier, LIAT (otherwise known as Leave Island Any Time, or Luggage In Another Terminal), we could cut our travel time by about 6 hours.  But we can’t.  Leaving the BVI meant an 04:30 reveille in order that we could undertake the normal pre-day ablutions etc and arrive at Terrance B. Lettsome International airport before 06:00 to catch an 07:00 flight to Sint Maarten where we would sit cooling our heels until 16:00 when the flight to Paris was scheduled to take off.

We’ve found a spot in Sint Maarten where we can have a good breakfast and chill until we need to move on so, upon arriving in SXM on Wednesday morning, we caught a taxi to Zee Best Cup and enjoyed breakfast and a bloody mary, or two.  We’ve had problems finding US-European power adapters for electrical items in France and I thought that we might have more success in Sint Maarten so after breakfast I left Graham sitting with a crossword and set off to find a solution.  Not only did I find the socket adapters that we needed, but I also found light fixtures for the renovation of the kitchen in the BVI so I was well pleased!

Returning to Zee Best Cup and settling down to an hour’s quiet read of my book we were astonished to see a friend who was supposed to be in England and staying with us in France this weekend wander by.  There was a lot of “what the Dickens are you doing here?????s” followed by explanations and a glass or two of wine.  Gosh, the world is a small place!  Liz drove us to the airport (having paid the bill as Zee Best Cup doesn’t accept credit cards and I’d not been able to extract cash from the “magic money machine” round the corner …how embarrassing is that??).

The Air France flight was predictably dire.  The seats that we had booked turned out to be for “equipment” other than that advertised when we booked the flight so, once again, Graham was sardined into a small seat with no leg-room and the passenger occupying the seat in front of him shoved her seat back to the greatest recline position as soon as she could.  The food was as awful as we have come to expect from Air France.  I had bet Graham that his meal would comprise Chicken, rice, frozen mixed veg and a mystery (probably tomato-based) sauce.  I won.  Sadly, my sneaky attempt at beating the system by ordering a vegetarian option was a major back-fire.  I received grey broccoli, frozen mixed-veg and tomato sauce with (gag) rice cakes and margarine instead of bread and butter.  That’ll learn me!

We took the TGV to Libourne, which meant catching a bus into Montparnasse to meet the train.   I nodded briefly in my seat and caught glimpses of daffodils and catkins alongside traffic and roadworks and rubbish and thanked my lucky stars that I married a man who hates cities as passionately as I do.

The train ride was smooth and punctual.  It was a pleasure to sit in a seat that was comfortable and not impinged upon by another thoughtless being and watch the contours of the countryside change to the familiar lines of home.

We had expected our connection from Libourne to Sainte Foy La Grande to be by train, but it ended up being a coach.  There was a bit of faffing around between buses during which Graham took the opportunity to gasp down a couple of cigarettes and we were underway.  Riding in the coach gave us several feet of elevation to which we are not normally accustomed and I thoroughly enjoyed the new perspective of the scenery.  But is was more than good to arrive home, albeit cold.