December 27th - January 6th

This was a pretty quiet time, we looked after Nick and Jackie's house and dog (Barbara the black Labrador, AKA "The Beast of the Forest") while they went to England to see family.
It was wonderful having the house as the weather had hit a bit of a cold patch, and we were waking to ice on the inside of the truck windows, we had no power so couldn't turn the hotwater on to help with warmth, and the truck isn't equipped with heating. It was now too cold to stay in the truck we couldn't get warm and it was damp from all the condensation.
While at Jackie and Nick's we emptied the truck and sorted all our stuff into, give aways, going home in freight, take with us home, and a sell pile. We had a tremendous amount of stuff accumulated........ and so I spent the next few days scouting around finding cardboard boxes and tape and trying to find a company on-line who could ship our things back to NZ. This filled our time pretty much, other than we had been invited to join a large group of friends of Nick and Jackie's for New Years Eve celebrations at a local restaurant.
Again we were warmly welcomed into the fold, many of the people we had met previously but there were also quite a few we hadn't. Despite a number being solely French speaking we found enough ex-pats who were happy to chat away to us in English, and so we had a very pleasant time. Some of the guests drank far too much and behaved in a way that I may have done 20 or more years ago, but (am usually) way beyond now, so that was a bit of a low, and to tell the truth the food was very average so that was a disappointment especially at 70 euro a head!! however Hilary had a nice time with some other children at a lovely house, watching movies and enjoying English conversation. Also some of the adults joined them at midnight (we didn't realise or we would have gone too) and let off fireworks to see in the New Year. Unfortunately the festivities were halted when 4 gendarmes arrived at the door and said the neighbours cars were in the line of fire and could they please desist. The kids enjoyed that as much as the fireworks I think.

We booked into a hotel in Fontainebleau (20kms from Milly) because none of the local hotels had vacancies, but that meant we were quite remote. At least it was on a main train line to Paris, and only 2 minutes walk to the station, and two in the other direction to a supermarket.   Fontainebleau/Avon scenes








We hung around the local area and did quite a bit of relaxing at the hotel while we waited to hear about the computer and truck repairs, having sent all the information we could to the insurance assessor (but it wasn't enough). Jackie thankfully managed to get the necessary papers from the garage who sold us the truck in the first place, and she arranged them to be sent off to the assessor. Of course the next thing was that he needed to look at the truck again (of course, he hadn't looked at it properly the first time!!!) and so we had to make the drive all the way to Arpajon again, a further 20 kms each way this time.
When we got there (we were told 10 o'clock) it was 0945 and he had already been and gone again (the assessor)- of course the woman only spoke French but we tried our best to convey our frustration to her and said we needed to see him. She tried to phone him, and told us (we thought) that he would come back at one o'clock. We were a bit miffed as that left us 2 and 1/2 hours to fill in, but thought we could probably manage that in the town itself, so drove back there to occupy ourselves.
We got back to the garage at 1230 and there was no sign of anyone, the gates were bolted and a sign said closed until 2pm for lunch.
Finally at 2pm people arrived back and we went in. The garage guy said the assessor had asked him to take some more photos of the damage, so he took some photos of the front of the truck. I said, the damage is underneath too, have a look. He indicated his instructions were only to look at the front damage and nothing else. We were really cross at the thought of wasting more time, and so phoned Jackie again to ask her to check out what was going on. It turned out that apparently the office woman had told us the assessor would be back in one hour, not at one o'clock (I checked with her at the time, but obviously the language difference meant we were both hearing different things and meaning different things.) The garage guy told Jackie it would be at least 4 weeks before they could get parts and that would just be the front panels.
We were very cross because we knew a lot more than that needed doing before we could sell it, and time was passing with nothing happening.
Thankfully Jackie spent the next week chasing them up and eventually got the garage to agree to take the truck and get it properly assessed, and that we would leave it there until it was fixed. It may as well have been, we couldn't use it for sleeping as it was too cold, and we had received a letter from the insurance company saying the truck was no longer road-worthy and could not be driven (though they had asked us to take it to Arpajon three times!!!!) and we had driven it for thousands of kms!!!! Talk about crazy!!!
So Jackie and I took the truck up to arpajon again, and left it there. We weren't really expecting them to say they would take it then, so it was a mad rush to take all the rest of our things out and we didn't get the chance to say goodbye and thanks for having us......
Jackie tells us, they have said it will be ready this week, but we fly out in a day, I have no idea what has been fixed and what hasn't, I'm a bit scared to ask, because we need to sell it as soon as we can, and get as much money for it as possible, and goodness knows what state it is in.
Jackie has offered to do the rest of the running around for us but we don't want it to be a pain, it's enough that she has been our spokespeson and helped us out so much already.

Christmas Eve we were invited around to friends of Nick and Jackie for Christmas celebrations. These friends, known jointly as "The Icelandics" are funnily enough from Iceland, and their tradition is to celebrate on Christmas Eve which works out well. Fanny and Svwen and their children (two of whom were there in person and one who kept joining us on Skype from Iceland with his partner and young son), often share Christmas with Jackie and Nick with the first stage at the Icelandics and then on Christmas Day they come around to Jackie and Nick's and have a more English traditional Christmas fare. It was really lovely to share in the festivities with such a lovely group of warm and hospitable people, and we were treated to some new tastes and food experiences with a delicious sea-food based soup for starters (I'm not usually a fan, but this was really delicious), followed by partridge and pears,(and lots of yummy vegetables, and then a wonderful ice-cream concoction and coffee to finish off, with a few chocolates a bit later in case we were peckish!! We weren't too late back to the truck which we had parked beneath some trees in Milly, within walking distance of the Icelandics and also in the other direction, Nick and Jackie's. We settled into bed then and there as we didn't feel up to driving and it was a bit more sheltered than our tarmac surface at the aire. The three of us huddled in bed together under duvets and multiple sleeping bags, trying to get some sleep in the crush and cold. The next morning we awoke and opened some presents after Hilary had found her stocking full of goodies from Santa. I went down to one of the patisserie's which were open (everything was, even though it was Christmas morning)and bought fresh bread. Then we had bacon and pancakes in the van, at which point we were joined by Nick who had come around to invite us around for the day. He came in and had some baguette and bacon with us (he lives in a house of vegetarians and couldn't resist the smell of freshly crisped bacon). We went down to Jackie and Nick's and spent the day there helping out as we could with food preparation and just hanging out until in the evening the Icelandics came around for a lovely evening. We were joined towards the end of the meal by another couple who are mutual friends of both jackie and Nick and the Icelandics, so sat around chatting and drinking nice wine quite late into the night.

Diana and Nick chatting at dinner, Christmas Eve.

Skyping Iceland

Enjoying new books.

Svwen

The next day we still had a day of museum pass to use. We had been intending staying another night, but we had been called back to Milly by Hilary who was missing us and almost tearful on the phone when we chatted. It was another very chilly and damp day so we didn't feel like doing a lot outside, but we walked down to the river and across to Sainte Chapelle on the island, and looked inside there. The stained glass is beautiful, it says it is best to view in the sunshine but that was a dream. Despite this, it was still delightful.

Virtually next door was the Concierge, now it is used as a gallery (or there was an exhibition on there when we visited). It was a modern exhibition with things to do with animals and their interaction with humans. Some very weird things, some interesting and some just plain odd and one or two disgusting. The most disgusting was a large white swirly arrangement of netting which contained live blow flies!!! Well most of them were alive but there were piles of dead ones too. How does that figure?? Gross is all I can say. The building was a palace in the first instance but later became a prison, it was here during the French Revolution that Marie Antoinette spent her last 3 months of life before being taken to the Place du Concorde where she was guillotined. One the cells was made up in the manner her room would have been, apparently quite posh by the standards of the day, but not palatial as she would have been used to. The whole area was a little unpleasant however, with displays about the various imaginative ways you could torture and kill people. Not nice reading.

The next stop was the George Pompidou Centre which is famed as much for the building as the collections it's art galleries hold. The building is one of those first, "industrial designs" with all the workings (and usually innards) exposed for people to see, and therefore as part of the design/visual appeal.

We headed back to the Hotel and retrieved our bags as we were tired out from all those museums and galleries. Slowly we made our way to the metro station which would take us to our station to get back to Boutinay and then Milly. We got back and the truck was sitting where and as we had left it (thankfully), we had been a little worried as we had seen a sign outside the car-park which implied you weren't allowed to stay overnight, even though it was the railway station car-park. As we supposed, it wasn't an issue, people must park there overnight all the time when they catch trains elsewhere.

We ventured out in the area immediately around the hotel, it was alive with activity despite the cold and by then drizzle. There were dozens of options for eating, mostly ethnic type (Moroccan, Kebab type street vendors), but we wanted somewhere to sit in rather than eat on the fly. We settled on a kebeb place which was very busy, tables jammed together and people coming and going. We were the only white faces present, and got some strange looks from the locals who I think couldn't work out why we were there. The food was good but far too chilli for my now delicate stomach, so it didn't sit too well with me. We only had a bit of a scout around afterwards, found ourselves outside the Hotel de Ville (Local council buildings) where an ice skating rink was set up for the public to use. Very pretty with all the coloured lights and buildings lit up too. We didn't linger however, before heading back to the hotel.

Christmas period, Milly and Paris

Just before Christmas Di and I managed to escape to Paris for a couple of nights. It was lovely to be child free, Hilary had been invited to come too, but decided she would rather spend her time with her cousin, doing a three day gymnastics course. We thought it would be a great opportunity to get some concentrated cultural exposure, so we bought a two day museum pass, and spent two days doing just that, over dosing on art and culture. Our first stop was the Mouseum d'Orsay which we had been to before, six years earlier, with mum, and which we had all really enjoyed. It had been set out differently in the interim, and I was not allowed to take photos this time, whereas last time I had been surprised with the laxity, and allowance of photoing all these wonderful art-works. I really enjoyed the impressionists and a lot of the scultures, especially the Degas and other "real" pieces. From the d"Orsay we went further into the university district where we had a delicious and very fairly priced lunch, a sandwich and piping hot lentil soup, which warmed the cockles on a cold day. Next stop was the Rodin Museum, again we had been here before, with mum, but wanted to see the works again, and also the setting, a medium sized Chateau with pretty grounds and a long view up to the house, with sculptures set around the gardens.

Near here (the Rodin Museum)is the Army Museum and Napolean's tomb inside the golden dome, so we headed the few hundred metres to there and had a look around. After a brief look at the buildings and part of the military museum and a comprehensive look around the chapel which houses napolean's tomb we decided Hilary would probably enjoy this museum with all the swords and armour etc. so cut our visit short, knowing we would probably be back when she was with us.

Instead we walked back across the river, through the gardens )Tuilliere's) and to the Museum of Textiles, beside the Louvre. Of course by now it was nearing closing time, so after a look through some beautiful jewellery displays I sat and looked after our bags in the vestibule while di went to another part of the museum where there was a Barba (the elephant) display, and some fashion things, though viewing was limited due to maintenance. We walked back to the Hotel Ticquetonne, had a cup of tea (thanks to our ever present electric jug) and a wee rest before heading out again for dinner and a look around at the sights and lights.

It’s 28th January, a lot has happened, and yet on some fronts it feels as if nothing is happening. It is over six weeks since we arrived in Milly-la-foret hopeful for a quick fix to our campervan and computer issues, and therefore a last few weeks of touring before we departed for home. We have the computer back now, it took six weeks to install a new hard drive, thankfully it was under warranty so apart from the cost of sending it off by courier to the repairer, it hasn’t cost anything. Unfortunately it took ages for them to fix it though, the parts were trucked on the 20th of December and even allowing for Christmas slowing things down, it was more a lack of attention which caused the delay. Despite sending an email saying we were going back to NZ and needed our machine back, there was no response and no action. It was only when Jackie phoned them and spoke to them in French that they got going and did the repairs. Of course we were in england when it finally arrived back, and so it was another week before we got our hands on it. Here it is now, but of course having a new hard drive means all the internet/skype things need to be reloaded, and I can’t find the appropriate passwords for jackie and nick’s wireless, so I’m relying on their computer for internet access. We haven’t sat around waiting the whole time since early December, though there has been a lot of that, and far more than we would have wanted or anticipated. Initially we stayed in the truck at an aire on the out-skirts of Milly, that was OK for quite a few days, but then the frosts came and the truck got colder and wetter inside. There were also rather blustery nights when we had to take shelter under trees in the village for fear of being blown to the next department. As winter progressed the local council (Mairie) turned the water off, I presume to ensure that the pipes didn’t burst with the freezing temperatures, and that made our stay at the “tarmac” less inviting as there was no longer water for washing, but more importantly no longer toilet emptying facilities. We endured until after Christmas, when the frosty mornings meant there was thick ice on the inside of the truck windows, and the thre of us had to all huddle in bed together under piles of sleeping bags and duvets to stave off the frostbite. Needless to say, we became sleep deprived, and our existence was just that, and pretty miserable with it. In order to get things moving on repairs to the truck we had to take it up to Arpajon which is a little town, not unlike Milly, with a village halle where the weekly markets are held (and have been for over five hundred years). The drive itself is quite pleasant, northwest from here, with a series of little villages being the guides to our correct path. Between the villages was very pretty farmland, the only problem being that the morning they wanted to see us there had been a very heavy frost and the road was incredibly slippery, and the cold night led to a dense fog which made the temperatures stay freezing and the visibility almost nil, and the journey frightening to say the least. We allowed plenty of time, two hours in fact for what later became a forty minute drive, however with the conditions and one wrong turn (onto a fast flowing motorway with no obvious way to get back off and head in the opposite direction) the two hours allowed didn’t suffice, and we had to call Jackie and ask her to phone the garage and explain we were half an hour behind schedule. Fortunately the assessor was running behind time too, so we ended up waiting three quarters of an hour or so for him. When he arrived he made a cursory assesment of the truck, we pointed out all the broken bits that weren’t so obvious, and told him about the damage that we could see on the undercarriage due to the truck having belly-flopped over a deep culvert. He seemed to acknowledge this, especially when I showed him photos of the accident site and the truck perched and then being craned off it’s landing spot. He said he would get back to us in a day or two with a report. Despite numerous phone-calls we heard nothing until after Christmas (about 10 days later) when a letter arrived asking for about four more pieces of paper, a “purchase agreement”, proof of “certificate of fitness” (the truck, not us), the photos of the accident (which I had emailed through to him 10 days earlier), and something else obscure which we didn’t have). Of course by now it was the 27th of December and Jackie and Nick had gone to England until the New Year and we had no copies of any of these papers and we were stymied. I’ll get back to the truck saga, it does after all continue, for quite some time. Apart from hanging around Milly getting pretty desperate with the increasing cold and the feeling of being a burden on Jackie and Nick (though we weren’t staying with them we were relying on them for interpretting and advice) we did try to do a few things. We managed to help out with a bit of child-caring which was lovely, not just because it was helpful but also because spending time with Elena and Josie is also a very pleasant experience, and getting to know these far away rellies is great.

A few of the many pastries we have sampled.

Elena and hilary playing in the truck

We walked into Milly with the Elena and Barbara (the dog) a few times. Pretty but cold. We had the truck so could travel places, but in the accident the bonnet had become so buckled that the release button wouldn’t work anymore and therefore we couldn’t remove the bonnet to check oil or water or any other important engine type things. We had already driven from Madrid (or earlier) in Spain, across to Barcelona (via Zaragosa) and all the way up from South eastern France to Paris with numerous side trips along the way, without filling oil or water, and we were getting very nervous about blowing up the engine. Ever since the very large Spanish mechanic had whacked our step with a very large sledge hammer, a red light had shone on our sppedo/odometre dial and I wasn’t convinced any oil warning light would be able to shine past it or differently, so we were not too keen to over-tax our truck with too many kilometres travelled. We did however make a few small journeys, one was to a little village about 15kms from Milly, called Barbizon, it is known as a place where the artists who were known as the “colourists” gathered and took up residence as it was near the forest and a beautiful place where they could commune with nature, and light and paint what they saw, quite a new and controversial style in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The village is very pretty, with a couple of museums and pretty buildings, though a bit touristy and hence expensive (19 euro for two coffees and a hot chocolate) see I still remember that six weeks later!!!!

Views inside one museum which used to be an inn all the painters congregated at. They painted everywhere and everything within reach!!

We also went to Fontainebleau a bigger town about 20kms from Milly, where there is a chateau of the same name. We did the town a lot, but also had a look around the chateau grounds. Despite spending a lot of time here over the weeks we didn’t ever venture inside the chateau, which I gather is quite a spectacle, if not a little over-the-top. Of course it being the Christmas season there was much to see which celebrated this, with decorations, lights, trees, and general lively goodwill despite the cold weather.

One of the highlights was taking Josie and hilary to Vaux le Vicomte a Chateau we had visited very early on in our holiday, with Jackie, when Di was left behind, crook in bed. The Chateau is open over the Christmas period decorated and beautiful with trees and festive scenes. We all had a lovely time, the girls were treated to a present each by the pwners (a piece of Papo of their choice (about 4 different choices) and a turn on the carousel which at first Josie thought was for younger children than herself, but which Hilary so glowed at the thought of, that she too joined in and had a great time. 3905 3898 3890 3881 3874 3864 3938 3937 3925 3917 3908