I suppose if one is used to driving a Porsche anything else might be a tad ordinaries, as the French would have it. I have a theory about holidays, they are there so that you can tell everyone chez vous , what a dreadful time you have had. Not disastrous but not great all the time which is what they are meant to be. So dreadful might be a little strong. "Eventful" sounds like you spent it going to non stop fairs and knees ups. Let's give up on its description for a while.
I used to be first rate terrible at taking holidays. Being a freelance cartoonist I was always concerned about losing work, not having it to come back to and the complete lack of earnings when I was being persuaded to have a good time by my nearest and dearest. We've dined out on stories of our family hols that did not go exactly to plan, and how grumpy I was. But to be fair I had reason from time to time. When my own daughter, then about only five years old hid the only set of car keys on a mini golf course and refused to say where they were, resulting in me getting towed off the campsite ( and don't get me started on camping ) so that a French garage could replace all the locks was to me a decent enough reason to be grumpy. Oddly a pair of German tourists found the keys to our car just after the last lock was fixed, giving back to me my now totally useless set of keys as my teeth clenched in thanks and frustration. Daughter was oblivious to the trouble and expense she put me through. This was some years ago, I've forgiven her.
Then there's the time, again this time driving through France and slightly delayed, ringing the hotel where we were to be staying that night from a small busy little bar in a village en route, to say we would be a little late, only for the hotel lady to tell me she had already let the room! My schoolboy French went into outrage, and a steam of Franco British invective followed, to no end , other than to bring the entire bar to silent staring at me as I sloped off back to the car to break the bad news to the family. In the event the next few hours brought some tensions and eventual triumph as we stayed in a minor chateaux where the owners charged us very reasonably and treated us like royalty. Entente cordiale pouring out from our pores.
The one holiday from those times was another to France when I'd had no significant work the two weeks before we were supposed to depart, so I was already grumpy. The day before we were due to leave I had a call to ask me to do some storyboards for some TV commercials. They were the days when mobile phones were just taking off and faxes were the thing. I told my client I was going to be in France, making it sound like I was there working, but that I could do them from there if that was ok. She agreed and I bought a mobile phone, my first, on the way to Portsmouth to catch the ferry. I did the drawings as we went from one location to another through France faxing them to London from Post Offices in rural France ( you could do that those days and it was the key to a successful working holiday ) The client was in London, the film director in Los Angeles, so they were used to faxed drawings. All round it was good for everyone, and the job paid for the holiday.
There are many others, from other trips and to everyone's relief I've got much better at holidays. No need for further suffering here.
Mike came round today, with lemon drizzle, that's the cake not the weather, and tales of his recent holiday in France. Mike drives a big Porsche, smart car and I do as much as possible to get him to drive us to walking locations around here. It's a lovely car. He's a very good driver too, I rarely clench my brake muscle in the passenger seat. The car has lights and bells and whistles everywhere. Some of these lights came on as they were approaching the Eurostar. As it was an orange light, this made it a less than urgent issue, red would be different. To cut a longish story down they limped down France and eventually got the vehicle seen in Avignon when orange turned to red.it meant they stayed a couple of extra days and had the dubious pleasure of another car, an MG, from a hire company. "How did you find that?" I asked.
Mike looked pained and uttered the phrase " it drove like a bar of soap". Not an expression or review of a car that I've ever heard before, and in many ways totally meaningless, but you know, I sort of knew exactly what he meant. He qualified it with the word "awful" but he didn't need to. We were on the same page. It was almost worth the stress they went through for him to come up with such a fine description.
His car fixed they were soon able to enjoy their meanderings in France and he had a more than decent tale to tell on his return over the lemon drizzle.
These are AI generated images where I asked the intelligence department to create a car that looked like a bar of soap and this is what it came up with and sort of perfectly illustrates what Mike was obliged to drive, all a bit weird. The second one looks like a car, but not like soap, the first looks a tad like soap.
The last one was briefed to be 'soap on a road in France....
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