Some people believe in conspiracy theories, and there are many who do not. There are those who believe that the American moon landings never happened, and that they were the product of some Hollywood studio. Some believe that Diana Spencer and Dodi Fayed were murdered by the Royal family, and that JFK was assassinated by the Republican party. In order for a conspiracy to work and to remain undetected for such long periods, would require a huge amount of careful planning, a lot of luck, and to have very few people in the know. Inevitably, if enough people know the truth, then the truth will out so long as someone is still digging.
I just came back from a trip to Freiburg, pronounced Fry - bourg, I am reliably informed by a resident. The trip was planned, paid for and organised well in advance and nothing was left to chance. Well strictly speaking that isn't true, as I shall explain in a moment.
We were dues to set out last thursday, the plan being to stay the weekend with my daughter and her husband, before setting off for the tunnel on sunday. Last wednesday, we had a call from aforementioned offspring, informing us of the death of one of here best friend's husband. He had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour seven years previously, but even so, his untimely death had a great impact on all those who knew him. I had had a conversation with him only a month before, when we talked about a shared love of Pink Floyd. The discussion was alittle odd as he couldn't remember what he had said in the previous 5 minutes, but we understood each other pretty well.
Anyway, clearly that put a spoke in the wheel of the perfect plan, and departure was delayed so that daughter could come down to us and spend some time with her bereaved friend. Ferries were cancelled and new ones booked...............so on the friday afternoon we set out again, and headed for the late afternoon ferry. All went well until the moment that we were signalled to drive onto the boat. The car refused to start! I pulled the car out of the loading lane, opened the bonnet so as to look like someone who recognised what was under there, and gazed vacantly into the gleaming technology that we take so much for granted every day.
The nice men at the terminal diagnosed a flat battery and produced a booster charger. We started the engine but the ferry had gone, so I drove around for half an hour to charge us up again. We caught the next boat and hoped that the engine would start at the other end. It did! We got to daughter's house and had a nice evening belated celebrating her birthday. The following day we set out to explore Maidstone. Not somewhere that I'd recommend, but it was dry and not too cold and passed the day. After having driven back to daughter's place, I discovered a flat tyre and because it had been driven on, and had a screw in it, it had to be replaced at huge cost! £170 for a tyre?? I couldn't believe it, and the comment from the mechanic about Ferrari tyres costing £1000 each was not exactly helpful.
The new day dawned and we set off for the Tunnel. The tyres looked ok, but now I was expecting another disaster to strike so, the journey started as a worry. The drive across France and into the Fatherland is a little over 500 miles and as we had already covered 100 getting to France in the first place, we decided to stop overnight en route.
Verdun has always been linked in my mind to the great war and treaties etc - Not any more!
We pulled off the motorway into Verdun and as is our wont, passed dozens of hotels before deciding that we'd better stop. The Lion D'Or was in a side street, not far from a war cemetary and it's only endearing feature was that it was open, and had a room. No it had all it's rooms empty! The owner, chamberperson, cook, concierge, whatever, was a tired and dishevelled Frenchman, that made Basil Fawlty look like a kindly saint. Hegave us a key, we didn't sign in, and he told us that if we wanted le petit déjeuner, it would be at 8, but clearly he didn't care much for that or for the English either. We went to the room - dark cold and dingy but it looked clean enough. There was no dinner - not to oneself - don't ever expect dinner in France on a sunday night! We wandered into Verdun and found a Vietnamese restaurant open and had a warm meal there.
Retiring early after a long day and collapsing into a very short bed with few blankets, sleep came reluctantly and when it did, it was doomed not to last. At 2am I was awoken by the sound of a cat miaowing outside the door. I turned over blocking the sound from my good ear and tried to sleep again. No chance at all, the bloody cat went on and on and on, unceasing bloody noise until at 7.30 I gave up and got up. Showered and the rest, I won't go into details, I ventured out of the room to find the sodding cat hiding behind a curtain on the landing. It was black and abou 4 inches long. How it made so much noise and created so much misery I will never understand. Maybe it was a reincarnation of one of the poor bastards who died here all those years ago and was seeking revenge. The last laugh was almost on me as i took the cases down to the car. i opened the front door and the little bugger shot out of the hotel straight over the busy main road. It missed becoming a very flat cat by nanometers and vanished into some bushes. I hope that it is still there, though i suspect that it's role is to make sure that English guests do not sleep. Clearly the landlord had no problems in that department as by 8.15 there was no sign of life in the dining room or at reception. Unscrupulous people might have just left the keys and gone but no- we waited and eventually he stumbled down the stairs in a half awake state and within half an hour had reluctantly assembled the makings of a continental breakfast. By the time it arrived, any original interest in food had evaporated so we paid the bill and left.
The Hotel in Pfaffenweiler was wonderful. Clean, light ,airy and warm even though the outside temperatures were 4 degrees.
The Black Forest is beautiful and arriving felt good. That night we had a really good meal in the hotel restaurant and a good night's sleep.
Next morning I awoke with a terrible cold and have had it since!
Next time I plan a holiday - someone please remind me that even though I may not be paranoid, that there IS somebody out there who has it in for me.
ps - the journey back was uneventful, but it would be wouldn't it?
