Marooned!

Just when you think everything is on the up and up, it suddenly plunges downwards. Monica and I were enjoying our morning cup of tea in bed – getting up to make a cup of tea and bring it back to the bedroom is one of the things I do every morning – the peace and quiet was shattered by what sounded like an alien invasion of monstrous proportions. The noise was absolutely astounding, we couldn’t hear ourselves think, let alone speak.

I threw off the covers and jumped over to the window, stubbing my toe painfully in the process. I had to hop up and down for a moment, clutching my foot it was so painful. Anyway, getting to the window, I could see a vast digger of some sort and several men in yellow overalls out on the road. Bright orange, flood lights on the front, a giant jib thingy on the back, it was moving very slowly – and I mean, very, very slowly – edging along the road outside the house at the end of the drive.

“What is it?” asked Monica from the comfort of our warm bed – we have discovered the bedroom can get a mite chilly on these winter mornings. I told her what I could see as the machine passed the drive and moved on. In that typical female way, she said probably nothing to worry about, just some road mending.

You can imagine my outrage when I went to take a look to discover that we were now entirely marooned. There was a mile wide trench at the end of the drive, utterly impossible to get the car out. After a quick breakfast, I called Jeff and wanted to know what was going on. He hadn’t a clue, no giant machines round his way. He suggested I go and asked at the mairie. A quick brush of the teeth and I stormed off to complain. They didn’t know a thing, nothing they could do. I was furious, I demanded to know when the trench would be filled in. Of course, they just shrugged. Bloody frogs.

We are now unable to go shopping or anywhere come to that. And of course, it’s the weekend tomorrow. Back in Blighty I would have shot off a letter to the Telegraph. But what can I do here? Nothing, we just suffer.