Ooh la la

For the first time today I heard that expression used by a genuine French person in a genuine way. More later.

Riding this morning was better than I expected, and better than last week. The new torture for today was sitting at the trot, instead of the uppy downy stuff you normally do. This turned out to lead to excruciating pain in a whole different set of muscles - the clinging on muscles, but I could at least walk when I got off today. And I discovered that my fellow student is the local yoga teacher, so I shouldn't feel intimidated by her relative suppleness and strength!

After riding, some chatting with my cousin, lunch and a trip into town to mail some of her stuff back home and to pick up a few essentials. Lots of car parks in France have circular kerbs with trees inside, to give some shade I suppose. I parked in front of one with no tree... and then forgot about it and drove up onto it when leaving. Once I realised I reversed, there was a bit of a grinding noise - but pretty quiet - so I stopped to get out and just check no little bits had fallen off. Happily none had. Unhappily, a very large bit had fallen off - the entire front of the car in fact - which was now only held on by the little tube that delivers water to the headlight washers.

After some standing around with my mouth open, I was joined by a passing bloke who offered no sympathy at all. Then, thankfully a painter/decorator came by and was very much more helpful - detaching the tube and taping it up, then putting the front of the car in the boot and taping the boot shut so I could race off to the school and not be too late for the kids. Our friendly van-fixing garage is pretty close to school, so off we went fully expecting to be sent away with an appointment to come in on Monday (it being 4.45 on a Friday afternoon). Instead, he responded to my: "J'ai un petit probleme avec la voiture" with the wonderful "ooh la la", put the car up on the hydraulic lift and fixed it. It took an hour and a half. And the charge? Zero.

Perhaps he felt I had already paid for it enough with shame and embarrassment?

Of course I should have blipped the poor broken car, but that only occurred to me when the car was 7 feet in the air, and it didn't seem polite to ask them to take it down so I could get my camera. So instead here's the only photo I did take. I'm hoping the odd treatment will distract you from the fact that it's not in focus.