I have it on reasonably good authority that the computer power that was used to land man on the moon is so inferior to that contained within an iPhone that it is hard to believe they came from the same planet.
Such is its extraordinary ability, that not only did it wake us in time for a leisurely farewell breakfast, it guided us for five hundred kilometres across three countries to a clearing near a small village on the banks of the Moselle River, where we found an even smaller campervan where inside hidden behind mounds of steaming food on the table, set at precisely the time it managed to predict from the outset we found Warwick and Julie. We had managed, through some miracle, to intersect with the trajectory of their mother ship as they travelled on their journey from Portugal to Holland. Our life has become a chapter in a sci-fi novel.
Sadly, its computational prowess also extended to reminding us all too soon that we still had an hour to journey's end and really we shouldn't sit swapping yarns all day even if we haven't actually yet started to catch up on the bits that have happened since our last meeting barely seven months ago.
So reluctantly we pushed on home to Lagarde. Home to where we had a boat to sort out enough to find somewhere on it to sleep, preferably before dark.
Home to Joyeux and Maggie and Jacques and Frida and Michel and Bill and all the other characters who live in the background of the story that is our other life on this side of the world.
As we sat late in the evening with Jacques and Maggie, nibbling on fresh sheep's cheese, finishing our third meal for the day in the company of friends, how could we not feel just a teensy bit grateful for our lot, and for the circumstances that led us to the path on which we travel?
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