Quirieu to Bayonne, France, Wednesday July 16th

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It was all action stations this morning, especially since we had the memory of waiting twenty minutes to get into the Lyon Station car park last time we were there (a one hour drive), and our train was due to leave just after 9.30 a.m. Anne-Marie did not have work, so the four of us drove off together to Lyon. I looked out the window, registering the sights of Quirieu and imprinting them on our memory as we set off on the next chapter of our adventures.

Our time here could not have been better. Anne-Marie and Yves are marvellous people who did everything to make our stay relaxing, enjoyable and interesting. They have interests, enthusiasms and passions which we could share. In that context of stimulating discussions, and with their help and support, our wish to express ourselves and exchange ideas was a great driver of our French language improvement. We enjoyed their company and regard them as our very dear friends.

They live in a beautiful, peaceful part of the world, away from the bustle and with their own chateau ruins nearby. All around them birds sing, perfumes waft, flowers drift, forests entwine, squirrels scamper and fields of crops grow and change with the seasons. The nearby village, within walking distance, has everything you could need and other centres are not too far by car. It was so lucky for our family that Joel went to live with this wonderful family in this little patch of paradise, and that we too have now had the chance to come. This meeting has meant such a lot to me because we have some shared parenting of Joel, and now it feels as though the missing pieces in the jigsaw have been filled in. Meeting Anne-Marie, Yves and Annelise, and liking them so much, has been an absolute joy.

Now only Aidan has not been here to meet three of the Primat family members (having met Marie and Emilie when they stayed with us in Australia). Hopefully this will be remedied soon, when we are hosts to them in 2010, or if Aidan and his family are able to visit Quirieu before that.

Naturally, with lots of time, there was no hold up with the car park. We spent the extra half hour having coffee, wondering what we had forgotten and feeling sentimental and sad. By the time we were to get on the train, Anne-Marie and I were holding tightly onto each other. We waved as we were swept away, and now we are counting down until January 2010 when we will see them in Australia.

The trip to Toulouse was extended by a twenty minute unexplained stop and later by one for which the announcement was that we would be stopping for an indeterminate length of time, but possibly up to two hours, while they cleared a broken down train from the tracks. During the first stop I read the French version of Cosmopolitan over someone’s shoulder and mentally answered the questions in the quiz ‘For you, what does love mean? I soon tired of considering what I would do if my boyfriend paid attention to his pretty x in the street, or if he slammed the door after a dispute, or what I would say if he said “I love you.”, and improved my listening skills by trying to understand what the teenage owners of the magazine were choosing. They were part of a nomad group without seats on a train that required booking, so I presume that rail problems had led to them being squeezed on with us.

For those careful readers of this blog, who noted my comments last time I was on a train with a priest, I want to record that a priest in long white robes, with a radiant smile on his face and a bag of kiwi fruit in his hand, and actually one of the nomad passengers, moved from carriage to carriage spreading calm and good cheer. He was so friendly that we wished he would come and sit with us and have a chat.

Out the window, when we were moving, we saw wind farms (which brought to mind that 80 % of France’s electricity is nuclear generated), open fields of bush tomatoes and poplar plantations for paper production. That didn’t last long, but by the second stop we had a friendly Scottish couple to talk to and to envy for their easy access to European travel on a yearly basis.

Announcements on our train, confirmed with other passengers, said that to go to Bayonne we should take a particular train as a connection from Toulouse. That was fine, but the display screen at the station said that that train was late and two of the station staff said that it had already gone. They did tell us to go to the ticket office but we were afraid to in case our train suddenly turned up. There was a train about to go to Bordeaux, from where we were told that we could catch a train to Bayonne, so with that information and half a minute to decide, we hopped on and off we sailed. It was a terribly slow train, stopping at all stations and a bit like a donkey that hopes it won’t have to keep going if it lingers at a station long enough. This was a bit of a worry, given the day’s history of delays, and I still had the nagging thought that we should have waited to see if the ‘late or gone’ correct train had turned up. Keith was very reassuring, but no sooner had be said that we had asked, and that no express trains had flashed past, than a whistle blew to warn our ‘donkey’ not to start moving and the train to Bayonne whizzed by. Just to be sure we were quite safe, and perhaps while they kicked the engine to try to make it go, we sat there for another ten minutes.

Being late is OK when you are the only ones involved, but our new landlady, Catherine, was going to meet our train. No-one in our carriage had a mobile phone with any credit on it and our phone was still not registered with Orange so it also couldn’t be used. We arrived at Bordeaux Station where they were calmly and competently in ‘damage control’ mode. A friendly young man in a purple cap manned the ‘advice’ stand, fielding all the tired travellers’ questions and sending them off to the right places. He cheerfully gave us the train time to Bayonne; three hours later. We used a phone box to call Catherine but she wasn’t answering so we left two messages, one in French and one in English. We rang Yves, since Catherine might ring him as our only contact number, and he undertook to try her again. Meanwhile we had eaten some tea and went to the ticket office to see about changing our tickets. It was a pity we didn’t do that first because they asked if we had had something to eat, as well as changing our tickets to first class in the new train.

It was a motley crew of unlikely and tired types who graced the seats of the first class compartment, and it even included a small dog which had a roll of paper towel with him ‘just in case’. When we arrived in Bayonne at last, I was off the train but Keith was not when the whistle to move off was blown. Luckily I knew what to shout in French.

Seeing Catherine and hearing her say “Bonjour,” was a great relief. Yves had got through with the news of our late arrival. We drove home to a house set on the down side of a hill, so that it is invisible from the street. Catherine welcomed us and told us that there was also another lodger, a figure skater of near our age, and that it would be interesting for us to meet him in the morning. We settled in, glad to drop into bed after the long day of travel, having left Quirieu at 7.40 a.m. and finally having arrived in Bayonne just after 11.00 pm.