The Old Hack

Coming from a small group of islands like Britain to mainland Europe, it is easy to forget the immense difference in size between England and France.  In a little over a week, we have travelled nearly 1,500 kilometres and have appointments galore to fill the next week before returning to our new (temporary) home in Montmarillon.

We  have based ourselves here in Narbonne (plage) for a couple of reasons.  One it is right on the beautiful Mediterranean that we know and love, and two - it is in the middle of a triangle of places we need to visit to keep both business and social appointments while we are in the area.

Yesterday, we set out to visit a British lawyer who works in France.  We had been recommended her by someone who said that her practice was in or near Toulouse.  Toulouse is quite a long drive from here, so we set out in good time, and arrived in Toulouse about half an hour before the arranged meeting time.

Then we discovered that the area she lived in was not in Tolouse, but rather some two hundred kilometres further north!  A glance at the map of France we had seen in Vienne had masked this vast difference in distance.  We got back to Narbonne at about 11.30pm thoroughly exhausted.

A couple of weeks earlier, we had travelled from our (then) home in London to Chesterfield.  We were held up on the M1 mortorway near Luton for over an hour.  We travelled through heavy rain and spray which held us up considerably and the journey took us more than four hours in all. 

In spite of the huge distance covered on yesterday's expedition, we were blessed with clear roads for most of the journey, excellent weather and beautiful scenery.  But next time, we really must concentrate on the scale of the map!