Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'feed me, then shoot me' signs on their heads? As far as harvesting a pheasant or two for
Sunday lunch is concerned, the bloke's inept and totally in cloud cuckoo land.”
Unfortunately, Jack was quite right again. I wasn't quite sure how we'd allowed
ourselves to get press-ganged into viewing this alternative choice but we were nearly there
so we'd just have to grin and bear it. As a way of cheering him up I told him that we were
travelling in
almost
the correct direction for
madame's
lovely
auberge
. This was where I'd
booked us to stay for a few days and our first evening had proved to be a great success.
Of course my navigation may not have been strictly accurate but it was worth a try. Wrong
again. Jack turned to me.
“Well, darling, that's quite an inventive use of the word 'almost'. We're currently trav-
elling north. The
auberge
is directly south of us. To get onto the best road from our new
destination we have to drive a fair few kilometres east and then south. No doubt all of this
will be lost on the other dim bint in the car, the SatNav lady, and based upon her 'as the
crow flies' logic, we'll be urged to use several farm tracks on the way. So yes, you're quite
right, we are
almost
en route. Pass me a snack please.”
Reassured that Jack was back to his usual jolly self, I dug out a mini-
Mars
and popped
it into his mouth.
The relative peace of our companionable silence was soon shattered by the ringing of
my phone.
“Harrumph! ItsWill here! I am informed that
Madame
Rougé is lost, would you
credit
it? It's her first visit too, apparently, so I suppose one mustn't be too disappointed at the
below-par performance of one's competitors,
haw haw
. But never fear, I've been on the
blower to the owners. They're in residence and I'll have us there momentarily.”
Sadly this was not to be. Twenty minutes passed and we were still slogging up and
down lanes trying to locate either
Madame
Rougé, or the property, I wasn't entirely clear
which. Neither was in evidence. Finally Jack lost his patience.
“Ring Will and put him on the speaker-phone would you, please?”
“Okay.”
“Will, it's Jack here.”
“Right here, old man, how can I help?”
“Will, if we carry on like this we'll run out of petrol. Look, if the place is the size of a
small planet, why don't we locate it via
Google Earth
on our laptops? Or better still, give
me the geographic coordinates from your sales blurb and we'll use the SatNav system to
find it.”
“Ah, jolly good idea. However, we're now en route to meet
madame
in a small lay-by
and we're almost there. Excellent idea though, ta-ta!”
With that the line went dead.
