Beyond the fog - La Cassine to Le Chesne

In the morning, if one is silly enough to be out of bed before the sun makes its presence felt, it’s sometimes difficult to see too far through the mist and the morning chill.  When the day looks like this though, it’s often a sign that clear blue skies and bright sunshine are not far behind.

I would be being less than truthful if I were to even so much as imply that Mr Perkins’ continued cantankerousness is not causing the slightest angst on board the good ship “Joyeux”.  

It is.   

The slightest amount, although it’s more frustration than angst, but we have a plan of sorts.   He seems to be fine for the first hour or so each day, so we’ll simply carry on metaphorically through the mist until we find the sunshine on the other side and stop when he decides it’s time.

Today he decided, as he did yesterday within crawling distance of our chosen destination that he’d almost had enough.  “Almost” got us there albeit at less than walking pace, which happily is about our normal speed in any case.    

As each day passes we are getting closer to the point where help will be easier to source, but until that happens, each morning at “start the engine” time we have the feeling we are playing “British Engineering Roulette”, a version of the Russian game except the loaded gun is a big lump of cast iron willing itself to destruct or at least have some other bit fall off. 

The outcome of the game matters little, just as the morning mist is quite beautiful even without the promise of the later sunshine.  If the truth be known, the countryside is infinitely more pleasant without the background sound of a diesel engine running.  I don’t think we can lose here no matter which way the Perkins falls.