Happy New Year – 1st January (Goodbye to Europe)

Thanks to everyone for their best wishes for the New Year. 

We wish all our family and friends a healthy, wealthy and happy 2014.

Yesterday morning we took the girls for their final walk, finished packing, cleaned our room, washed towels etc.  The girls were sitting on the lounge as usual when were brought our bags down from the bedroom.  They sat to attention, too lazy to stand and looked at our bags.  Another change of guard they were probably thinking. 

We invited Julian a friend of Melinda’s (house sit homeowner) for lunch.  I cooked a mushroom & chicken risotto. Julian will stay with the girls till Melinda returns from the UK tomorrow.  It was a nice way to end our stay at the house.  I got a bit teary saying goodbye to the girls.  I am hopeless at saying goodbye.

Saying goodbye

Julian & the girls

We arrived in Bergerac at our hotel at 4.30pm.  Lucky we weren’t planning on seeing in the New Year in a big way.  Bergerac literally shut shop for the evening.  At 7pm we walked into the town square, only a 5-mintue walk to find a restaurant for dinner. 

We were dumbstruck the only place we could find open was a Vietnamese restaurant.  It was either that or return to the hotel and hope the pizza restaurant advertised on the flyer in the room was open.  We decided on the restaurant.  The Vietnamese looking waitress didn’t speak English.  We tried our best to order in French.  Not surprising we didn’t’ get what we ordered.  The food was yummy.  We ended up with chicken & prawns in a peanut sauce – Jim ordered crispy chicken.  The steamed rice and sautéed bean shoots was correct.  My order of steamed pancakes and grilled scallop kebabs was never going to happen.  I said to Jim I will have what you’re having. 

As you can imagine we didn’t see the New Year in, we turned the lights off at 9pm.  I woke up at 12.30pm to noise in the hallway, a couple returning to the hotel perhaps.  I looked out the window and the streets below were as quiet as quiet.

This would make a good funny home video (pick the lost in translation wording)

Streetscape outside the train station at 8am 

Bergerac train station - leaving on train, don't know when I'll be back again.

I am writing this on the train to Paris. 

Jim is listening to his iPod ‘Leaving on a jet plane’.  He shares an earphone with me – I cry.  I am quite emotional at the moment because we will be saying goodbye in two days.  We won’t be seeing each other again for two months. 

Many people say we must be looking forward to this time apart after spending so much time with each other over the past year.  Of course there have been many times when we have gotten on each other’s nerves but each day is a new day and we have learnt (probably me more so than Jim) to leave the previous days events where they belong – in the past. 

PS. sorry for the poor quality of the photos - that is because I took them on the iphone in the rain