George had always wanted to drive a 2CV, Karen had aspirations of becoming Thelma or Louise. It didn’t matter to her that the car was less than a third of the size of the one that suffered such an ignominious end the hands of that particular pair, nor that there was any cliff over which we could drive (thankfully). All that mattered was that there was no roof.
We on the other hand, just wanted to get out of work.
That is pretty much how we came to be jammed together into the ancient, tiny Citroen that NavigFrance so kindly keep for the convenience of visitors to the port as well as those who harbour delusions of the kind outlined above. It took our intrepid pilot fewer than a dozen starts to master the clutch sufficiently to get us mobile, which was exactly time he discovered one of the great safety features of the car. It had no fuel.
After much wailing and gnashing of gears, in sunshine that would have fried us to a crisp if we had been anywhere else in the world, we were away on an adventure that took us along the open road, through winding hills, across the cobbled streets of Luneville and to a shady little spot where we found just enough green grass for a picnic in the gardens of the Chateau. I’m sure had we the talent we could have written a song about today, or a movie perhaps but one without a tragedy at the end, just four large grins and perhaps a teensy bit of sunburn.
No comments
Post a Comment