Bigger Problems To Test Our Patience

Sometimes it’s hard not to think about home.

Thursday 23rd June 2022

We overslept until 8am, but at least we woke up to a blue-sky morning.  At 9:45am we drove round to the bicycle repair shop and were very pleased to find our bikes were finally ready.  We strapped them on to Reggie, paid, thanked and farewelled Monsieur Mechanic and prepared to set off again, at last.

Nope, no such luck.  Our luck had run out.  Something was conspiring to keep us in Le Bourg de Oisans.  Reggie displayed the transmission warning light for the third time and this time absolutely refused to find a gear. We spent an hour reading the handbook from cover to cover.  The handbook for a manual drive van, not an automatic, so not very useful.  Rodney kept testing it and poked around under the bonnet. I tried to find a number to call the RAC breakdown service in Europe, which also took ages to find, especially as I was now having problems getting wi-Fi on my phone.  What else could go wrong on us?!!!

With the help of Monsieur Mechanic and his mobile phone, Rodney managed to ring the RAC and waited an hour to be told they would send someone within another hour because the driver was finishing his lunch !!! This is France at its most incredulous.  We handed Monsieur Mechanic a bottle of wine for all his help and at 1:15pm, when the tow truck driver turned up, he loaded Reggie with the two of us and the two bikes (hopefully fixed…we haven’t yet tested them) and drove us to a car yard on the outskirts of town. 

Reggie was left on the tow truck while the driver went to check if they could fix the problem.   Nope.  He suggested we go over to a boulangerie next door for lunch while he rang the RAC to find out what to do next.  We anticipated a long wait because lunchtime can last until 3pm in France.  We ate two quiches and waited and waited and waited.  On the bright side, the views of the surrounding mountains have been lovely from the bicycle repair shop driveway, from the boulangerie patio and from the car repair place’s waiting room. C est la vie.

At 3:20pm someone rang from the RAC and informed us they would look for somewhere to get Reggie fixed.  We’re not sure what they had been doing all day up till then!  He offered us a hotel, but where?  He didn’t seem to understand we couldn’t go anywhere without our home and all its contents.  We needed a hotel near to where Reggie would be fixed.  He said he would get on to it.  We sat and continued waiting.  Rain clouds swept over the mountains and disappeared again.  At 3:50pm the garage rang the RAC again.  Apparently he is still trying to find a mechanic.  By 4:45pm we were getting anxious and making plans to ask for Reggie to be taken off the tow truck, it would be far more comfortable waiting for the RAC to get their act together and perhaps sleep there the night, in their car yard.   

At 5:45pm we had to leave Reggie on the back of the tow truck with all our belongings and hand over the keys.  A taxi picked us up and we had no idea where we were being taken, but it was obvious it wasn’t going to be in Le Bourg de Oisans.  It turned out to be Le Pont de Claix which seems to be close to Grenoble, somewhere we had no intention of visiting. And, if I had known we were travelling that far, I would have nipped into a toilette before we left!

We spent the whole journey trying to forward guess what was happening to us and to Reggie.  The young taxi driver took us to the Hotel Villancourt in Le Pont de Claix and said something to the lady on reception and handed over a piece of paper.  Room 104 is just fine, and it’s quite nice having a bathroom all to ourselves.  We have no idea where Reggie is and we’re going to need some shops tomorrow if we can’t find Reggie and get inside for some clothes, etc..  It’s 10pm, we’ve walked up the road for a meal and now we’ll try and get some sleep and try not to think about what sort of chaos tomorrow might hold for us.