29 09 07 early start in the chateau
We had to lose a few people this morning, with three couples staying in Bordeaux overnight. That meant that they all had to be packed ready to leave at nine thirty, and that’s early for us. There was no problem – we made it easily, after a breakfast of left over pasta for me – a good start for a cold morning.
And Geelong won the AFL Grand Final! Phil was delighted - and distraught that he had missed it after waiting 44 years..
We didn’t take tom tom’s advice getting out of the village, so ended upon a tour of unfamiliar places before finding our way on the road to Berenac - I’ll check the spelling on that some time later. And the trip to Bordeaux was uneventful until we tried to find our way to the apartments that Leslenyand Brian were staying at. That was fun, up tiny narrow streets, wondering where on earth we were going and trusting the GPS – which eventually told us we had reached our destination, and blow me down, we had. We left them to find their way, and their rugby tickets, which had been lost in the move from Spain, and we went off to find a park ourselves. We went under the Mecure building, and close to a shopping centre.
It was quite amazing that we linked up with the others so quickly, and then we were off. A quick rekkie of the area to take some photos of a few landmarks, a kebab in the Arab quarter where the markets were on, and we trekked to the game.
Again, we linked up – all thirteen of us, and we headed inside. The stadium was much smaller than Cardiff, and the security guards patted us down and looked through our bags before we were allowed to our seats.
The atmosphere was quite different from that in Wales. A smaller crowd, more singing, a band, and then another on the opposite side of the stadium – that was fun – the Mexican wave after wave after wave – and although the game was won by the Aussies, there were few glimpses of brilliance - not up to the usual standard. It is always good to see the Aussies play, and of course great to see them win. Light rain fell, making the pitch and the ball slippery and the mistakes in handling were heart stopping. Too many chances were given away.
We were there, we saw the game, we kept dry, we thoroughly enjoyed it, said goodbye to those we wouldn’t see again for a while, and trusted the GPS to get us home again. It has been a slow and quiet night. We have not drunk all our wine, with Paul and Graham having a tummy bug. We did accuse them of giving the botte a nudge too far at first, but it has proved more than that, and two days off the grog haven’t really helped.
Our keeper, Caroline has inspected the house and said we have left it the cleanest she has ever seen. She says they have never had Australians before, usually Americans and British, and she finds them dirty. They do not clean up after themselves, and those with babies have been known to change the nappies on the lounge, so that the whole unit had to be cleaned specially. That is a surprise, because the place is not hard to clean, and it is a simple matter to leave everything so that it just need the linen changing for the next guests – who are coming in tomorrow! We felt good about that.
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