Reloading

If you have by some strange chance just dropped into my blog, you are very welcome.  But you will need to go back a couple of days to catch up with what is going on.

We eventually got under way with the double mattress on top of the two singles. I drove gently along the road with Mrs S sticking her head out of the window every few yards to make sure that the mattresses were behaving themselves. All went well until we came to a roundabout. Halfway round, the mattresses started slipping off the roof and I had to stop.

This would have to be the busiest roundabout in the town and traffic was soon stacked up on every approach road. A van-load of police in full riot gear appeared, seeming to arrive out of nowhere. My heart sank. I knew that the motoring laws in France were quite severe and that French police could not only levy large, on-the-spot fines, they were also empowered to confiscate offenders’ driving licenses in certain circumstances. I had visions of the car and mattresses being impounded until I had paid a fine of several hundred euros, and possibly having my license confiscated into the bargain. But all the police did was to clear a path through the traffic and help to steady the mattresses while I drove at a slow walking pace to a spot where I could safely refasten the load.

It did cross my mind to suggest to Mrs S that she should wait there with the double mattress while I took the singles home. I didn’t, because I thought she would object even more to standing beside, or lying on, a double mattress beside a busy roundabout than she had about doing it at the side of a relatively quiet road.

After reloading the mattresses, I sat for some time trying to work out a route that would avoid roundabouts and sharp bends. But I overlooked the fact that although the mattresses might slip sideways at bends, they could slip forwards or backwards on steep hills. And sure enough, as we were going up a hill on one of the quiet country lanes, they slid off the back.

By the time we got those mattresses home I was shattered. There was no way I could take the two singles up the stairs until the following day.

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In Chateaubriant old town.  I'm not sure if it was this house or the one next door that Victor Hugo's mother lived.