End of an era!

 

My brother Richard contacted me the other day to let me know that the Honda Shuttle I sold him nearly 30 years ago has finally given up after he had added over 500,000km on to it! He had used it as a workhorse down in provence - I had experienced a few off-road trips with him up to his vines but it handled them well.  He was sad to see it go "An Angel will alight when she passes through the crusher and she goes to Honda heaven."

I felt similarly sad when I said goodbye to the Honda car I replaced it with when it failed its emissions test here in France.

End of the line...

Sadly, after 20 years together my trusty old friend and I have had to part company. The now even more stringent 'contrôle technique' has this year proven to be too big a challenge with a fairly long list of problems which, for us simple country folks, were too expensive to contemplate repairing. My French neighbour did the last drive with me to the breaker's yard where we left her,still looking good externally, to await her fate...sad day!

It is all about the technique...

There was much relief in the Craig household last week when the trusty old Honda (1998) passed its 'contrôle technique', France's equivalent to the MOT  but here we get a 2 year stay of execution.  

Think she actually looks good for her age...a few bumps and scrapes and a great deal of abuse but still comfortable and going reasonably well...could describe someone else.. 

Provence...leaving can be exhausting.

We had intended leaving beautiful Provence on the Saturday but as Richard and Francoise were heading back to Paris the following day we decided to wait and leave with them. This meant we could drop them off at the TGV station in Avignon before heading back home.

Unfortunately the car had other ideas...after loading up the car which by now had a full tank of petrol,all our wine purchases,an extra couple of passengers and their luggage - we headed off. We only got as far as their front gate. The car's underbelly was now just low enough to catch the middle of the exhaust on the gate stop and do a fair bit of damage.

This meant a quick change of plan and car then a round trip to Avignon. We also now had to try and get it repaired so as we could return home. Francoise's dad was kind enough to get the local garage on the job and we got the car back with a patched up exhaust by the Tuesday - there are worse places to be stuck but it was good to know we would be able to return. We planned our return trip for Wednesday.

Provence road-trip... part 1

The reason we had been down in Provence was to visit my brother Richard and his wife Francoise who are lucky enough to have had a house built in the village where Francoise was brought up.

Taken on this trip - with lovely blue skies.

It had been 4 years since our last visit (how time flies) to them there, though we get over to see them in Paris every year.

We (well me really) decided that we should use our 13 year old Honda for the trip as it is more comfortable for long drives, has cruise control and it had been a while since it had any sort of holiday due to its unreliability.This unreliability stemmed from the fact that it would refuse to start in any sort of extreme (well actually not that extreme) weather - too cold or too hot - 'no not today thank you'.

A search on 'google' identified the problem as the relay which our friends Mike and Liz brought back a replacement for from the UK. A quick tutorial video by a very nice lady on 'YouTube' and problem solved -oh the power of the internet!

My meticulous planning consisted of a quick reminder of the main towns enroute using my trusty 'Collins'...my how time flies (have I already said that?)

Did I say we have never invested in sat-nav, have no smartphones and the radio in the car doesn't work....just setting the scene - more on Monday.