Cécile and I have just finished loading Caliburn and he’s now parked up back in his little spec down the road. Julie’s bookcase is in there, and so are Clare’s wicker objects and Cécile’s dismantled desk. There are piles of boxes too, some for Liz.
I had another dream last night. I don’t remember much about it but I was in a scrapyard looking for a car battery and they had a white battery that they were using to check out all of the electrical equipment. For some reason it was that battery that interested me more than any other and so I insisted on having it. They were obliged to check it and test it in front of me before I paid them the money.
Anyway this morning I went and reserved my voyage to Canada and then to Greece. I bitterly regret that the branch of my travel agents that used to be up at IKEA has closed down – instead, I went to the one just around the corner and that was a mistake. Up there, they were always competent but here they don’t have the same esprit and during one attempt to do my booking, the girl had me arriving back at Paris on 7th October in order to take a aeroplane out to Greece on the previous day. And then, of course, the computer system crashed, didn’t it? That just was’t my morning. Unfortuately I’m having to fly Air Transat – the equivalent of long-distance Ryanair – and that is something that I vowed that I would ever do again after my voyage of 2011 but havig left my booking so late and having lost the benefit of my half-price voucher (it expired when I was here helping Marianne), flying by Air France was not an option (and I’ve just realised that I haven’t ordered my special meal).
Back here in the afternoon we sorted out all of the books and took four boxes to the second-hand bookshop. He chose about 25 out of them, and gave me €45 for those. Now I wasn’t half impressed with that – if I had received that for all of them I would have been well-impressed – and so with no further ado, the rest went to Oxfam.
And back here, we packed up and loaded.
It’s much more empty now and we can move around. But there’s still far too much stuff here for my liking and the sooner it all goes, the better.
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