'cause we got a little ole convoy rockin' thru the night

convooooy!

Back from a glorious week of truck driving and furniture moving in the south of France. How good it felt to spend a week working and actually enjoying it!

The opportunity came through the husband of one of my colleagues (Allison in the photos). There is a company here called 'Aussie man and van', which Steve, the husband, worked for. Note 'worked'. He quit after an altercation with his boss, but put in a sneaky phone call to some clients he had lined up and offered to do the job for them anyway - VAT free. Of course he needed an assistant who was dedicated to the art of lifting heavy things and my name was put forward, an offer was made and I duly accepted - 5 days of truckin' and liftin' in the warmth of the French Riviera for a tidy sum.

We spent most of last Tuesday filling the back of the 7.5 tonne truck with a huge amount of brand new Laura Ashley beds, wardrobes, shelves etc etc, enough to fill her newly purchased villa on the slopes overlooking Bargemon (little town about 45 minutes from the sea). She also wanted a Ford Explorer moved down there, which was to be the vehicle I drove down. The drive goes through Dover (white cliffs appearing much greyer in the fog and rain of England), across the channel on the ferry to Calais and then 11 hours drive through Paris and Lyon, bypassing Marseille and turning off just before Nice. Arrival in Calais was at 11pm and managed to get to about 200km short of Lyon by 4am when we pulled over and passed out in our seats for a couple of hours.

I had a temperature guage in the Explorer and the whole journey to that point the temperature had varied between five and eight degrees and raining....I was starting to get concerned about the warm weather and sunny skies I had expected. Sure enough, as we passed through Lyon the clouds vanished and temperature slowly started to climb, just after the Marseille turn-off the guage hit 20C, the warmest weather I have felt for 7 months, it shortly afterwards hit the maximum for the day of 21C, hooray! I also started to get a small dose of driver's forearm (those of you who drive in sunny climates will know what I mean), hooray!

After winding our way along some archetypal european bendy roads through the Riviera hinterland I was struck by how similar the countryside is to my beloved Biddaddaba. The rolling soft browns and earthy colours set against a brilliant blue sky made my spirit soar with that feeling of freedom and being in the 'real' world again - people were wearing clothes designed for outdoors living, practical clothing. It is easy to forget in London that a place like this doesn't just exist in my dreams.

So in singlet and shorts we unloaded the truck, pausing overnight to sleep and eat and visit the town, finishing the job just after midday the following day. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and lazing in the sun with a beer in one hand and a book in the other.

I'd better get this post finished - I'm actually busy at work now - new job etc.

We stayed in a hotel that night, collected more stuff the following morning, drove back to London. It was cloudless skies until we reached the channel. We could see the big Welcome Home clouds looming as we approached. Sure enough, cold, rain and fog set in as we boarded the ferry. Arriving back in London around 3am we slept at Steve's house and then finished the job the in the morning - having a big brekkie to finish off the week and I returned to Kilburn for a weekend of celebrating birthdays and a pagan fertility festival.

And we can climb onto our big flat roof if we unscrew our bathroom window - some nice afternoons up there I suspect.