I
recently wrote a blog entry about how much I loved living here because no two
days are ever the same and I detailed strange events that had happened during a
5 day period. All that pales into
insignificance compared to a recent set of very strange experiences that
happened over a 24 hour period – and I apologise for the length of this blog
but it was a very ‘full’ day!
It
started on Sunday evening when my new kitten vanished into the dark and windy
night. Luckily no cars were passing at
midnight or they would have seen a lunatic woman in a hideous pink dressing
gown standing in the road shaking a bag of cat biscuits and calling his
name! I left the outside lights on and
the kitchen door open all night and didn’t sleep very well – mainly imagining
what other strange animals might try to come into the house. The next morning, fearing the worst (although
actually the dog looked quite pleased) Loulou and I walked up and down the road
looking for a dead body in the hedge, then I prodded the murky depths of the
pond with a stick, then grappled with the pool cover imagining that he must
have fallen in chasing a lizard and drowned, but luckily found nothing. We then went to ask the neighbours to keep
their eyes open – they are in their 80s, very fit and healthy and are out
gardening in all weathers, but I was still rather shocked to see Madame squatting over a bucket next to
the water butt as I approached. I hid
behind a large cactus plant until she had finished and she didn’t seem at all
embarrassed to be pulling up her tracksuit bottoms as I greeted her (happily we
are on kissing terms not handshakes) I was almost convinced I had been
hallucinating but I googled it later and apparently fresh urine makes perfect
compost accelerator, but it has made me wary of accepting their gifts of
home-grown vegetables...
My
friend Vicky then arrived to carry on painting the living room and I had to
leave for work – although the fact she had brought the 5 dogs again made it
unlikely that the cat would be brave enough to return while I was out. At 3pm I received a phone call from the
plumber saying that he was at the rubbish tip and that he could see smoke on
the top of the hill near my house. I
explained that although I was out there was no problem as my friends were at
the house and hung up. About 30 minutes
later I rang Vicky to make sure that everything was OK, only to find that she
had left 2 hours earlier. On a positive
note, it took my mind off the missing cat but I then had to ring the incontinent/eco-friendly
neighbours just to make sure that my house wasn’t on fire. It took a fair amount of explaining but they
reassured me that everything was OK. (Later
I heard that the Mayor’s vineyard had been on fire but luckily it is not that
close to the house).
Shortly
after that I was driving back down one mountain on the way to the second
viewing, with the clients following in the car behind, when I heard a motorbike
behind me – but when I looked in the mirror there was nothing there. I then realised the noise was coming from the
back of the car so I pulled in to the side of the road but could see nothing
(nor could the bemused clients) so I explained to them that I thought I had a
stone in the tyre so not to be surprised by any strange manoeuvres I might make
once we got to the straight bit of road.
I then proceeded to wiggle the wheel and stamp on the brakes occasionally
but nothing would dislodge it so I carried on driving to the next rendezvous
almost convinced that I had a wasps nest in the boot but arrived safely in
Cassagnes, 20 kilometres up another twisty mountain road. When we had finished viewing the final
property we all spotted that the back tyre was now completely flat. The clients just happened to have a very
handy electronic tyre inflator so they very kindly helped me – but to no avail,
the tyre just would not inflate. I then
faced the embarrassing situation of having to unpack the entire boot area (bag
of dog toys/dish/water bottles, supermarket shopping, beach towels, christmas
decorations (?)) only to find that my car was the type that only came with a
puncture repair kit and not a spare tyre. The breakdown service said they would
send someone out within 45 minutes. The
policy here is that they get you to the nearest garage, not necessarily a tyre
specialist and not necessarily near to where you want to be so the fact I was
in a remote village miles from anywhere didn’t bode well. There was obviously some event going on in
the village that afternoon as well-dressed people carrying flowers and/or
glasses of wine drifted in and out of the Mairie where I was parked so at least
there was something to look at to pass the time, and when at last the breakdown
truck arrived, everybody came out to watch, and who could blame them as it was
an enormous black and yellow ex-army type vehicle with flags and flashing
lights everywhere. The mechanic found a
huge piece of metal in the tyre and couldn’t repair it so was then thrilled to
entertain the assembled crowd by using a remote control to engage the gadgets
to raise and lower my car several times before towing it off to the garage.
The
garage was in Ille-sur-Tet, a town slightly more in the direction of my village
(which was a bonus) but by this time it was 7pm and the garage was closing so
they would see what they could do to the tyre in the morning, and called for a
taxi to take me home (paid for by the insurance company). I was relieved to know that I would be home
within 20 minutes but my hopes were dashed when the taxi driver then announced
that he would be picking up another fare from Perpignan ‘on the way’ (local
residents will understand my rage at this detour!). It turned out that he was picking up an
elderly person from the Clinic and taking him back to his home in
Prats-de-Mollo, a village at the top of the Tech Valley. Despite the fact that the patient seemed to
be still suffering mild effects from the sedatives, he was aware enough to
question the route that the driver was taking and had to be reassured several
times that taking the ‘wine-route’ and dropping me off on the way would be a
short cut!
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I
finally got home at 8pm, completely stressed and exhausted, to be greeted by an
extremely excited dog who managed to convince me that what I really wanted to
do was to play with her in the garden, rather than dive into a bottle of wine
and relax. Eventually, with my guilt at
leaving her for so long assuaged by an epic game of football and double-portions
in her food-bowl I was able to pour myself a generous glass of wine and sat out
on the terrace while my Pizza cooked. I
half-heartedly called the cat’s name and heard a rustling sound from the bottom
of the hedge. Given the fact that I have
seen a snake under there I thought it was pretty brave of me to investigate
but, armed with a tennis racket, I managed to pull some branches aside and peer
in and found an extremely shocked and exhausted kitten staring up at me. It took quite some time to manoeuvre him out
from his hiding place as I was terrified of hurting him even more as he was
obviously injured, but I was so pleased to hear him purr as I held him in my
arms. I had not had him for long and he was usually pretty wary of me - perhaps
due to the fact that I had him castrated within a week of his arrival...
So,
apart from the fact that my pizza was burnt to a crisp, my bizarre day ended
happily. And the cat is now doing well –
the vet had to operate on some pretty horrible internal injuries and said that
he had been run over by a car – but he is now back home with a shaved side and
a plastic bucket tied round his head and looks so scary that the dog hides when
he appears!
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