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mediately, he switched into mechanical engineer mode and went through a series of tests to
make sure the car functioned. It did.
He then asked me to collect all car-related debris and especially bits of rear light lens,
no matter how small, while he went off to find a service station that might have the ne-
cessary repair equipment we needed. Eventually he returned with a bag full of interesting
glues, coloured tapes and kits for windscreen repairs. He began by sticking and taping to-
gether the jigsaw of rear light cluster bits that I'd collected.
Enormous as it was, Jack's multi-tiered box of tools unfortunately did not include
spare light lenses. I remarked on this.
“Yes, damn! Complete omission on my part. You won't believe this but I haven't
brought a spare engine and gearbox either. So remind me not to drive over any bloody vol-
canoes.”
He obviously wasn't in the mood for a gentle dig.
In the dreadful excitement of what had already happened that morning we hadn't prop-
erly reviewed our day's schedule. Fortunately it was still only 7:00am but there was much
to be done to make the car roadworthy. Although we were due to visit ItsWill's first prop-
erty, he'd sub-contracted the job out to a local agency that was marketing the domaine in-
dependently.
We had a meeting organised with their representative at a café in the main square at
9:30am and the plan was to drive to the estate in convoy afterwards. After the viewing we
would return to the auberge for another night, before heading out the next morning to the
second property.
We managed to sort out the car and feed, medicate and walk the dogs by 8:30am,
which was a relief. We had also accidentally learned a bit more of the language in the car-
rebuilding process. I was amused to learn that 'scotch' was the commonly understood word
for any form of sticky tape and Jack was rapidly developing a 'subset' car-parts vocabu-
lary. And aside from remaining grim-faced, he was rallying admirably.
After the repairs (termed 'bloody awful bodges' by Jack) were finished, we were now
both sleep deprived and oily. We returned to our room to have a civilised revitalizing
shower. We were starving by this time and needed a decent breakfast to sustain us for our
first big day so trooped eagerly into the restaurant ready to devour whatever was put in
front of us. Luckily the owners had gas cookers (being obviously accustomed to meteoro-
logical disasters) and we tucked into a thoroughly English breakfast.
We discussed the night's events with the waiter. He assured us that although the storm
was indeed dreadful and there had been much damage, this only happened every ten years.
There was always State aid to help rebuild ruined properties and lives, and insurance for
smashed vehicles. Therefore we must not let this affect our judgement about house-hunting
in the Mirepoix area.
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