Mile:16578 Daily: 000 Meteo: Sunny and hot.
Beautiful sunny day. Whilst we
waited for the kettle to boil Mike ran across the road and checked out the
beach. The tide was on its way out from the high point. There was barely more
than a dozen people on the beach of the whole bay. This was at 0900hrs.
Returning to the van Mike was side-tracked by the rubbish removal boy.
Already
at this early hour there were fresh plastic sacks on their holders on the beach
ready for today’s visitors. But the fascination was with the row of hopper bins
that lined the pavement outside the aire. You could see how one put the rubbish
in but as these were sunk into the ground how do the collection guys get them
out?
The answer was obvious really. A pneumatic crane. The jib arm had some
sort of grab arm that connected to the top stump of the bin and lifted a 3
meter long container out of the ground, swung it over the rear of the lorry
threw a switch and the bottom opened and deposited the contents into the lorry.
Not knowing the word for fascinating I said it in English to the chap stood
next to me also watching intently. He was German and once more another most enlightening conversation
ensued. We chatted about my youth spent in Germany on the Rhine and Moselle, Jackie's various
visits to Munich with Wrigley's, the Deutches Museum and of course rubbish and
recycling in Germany, France and the UK. Once again it seems we in GB are well
behind. I had to take my leave as 'Feiststuck' was ready.
Breakfast over we were off to
the beach. It was now 1200hrs. Yes it was a late breakfast. We didn’t leave the
beach till 1830hrs. The only thing of interest was the walk to the ‘cabane’ for
two chocolate Magnums, madame smiled at me. She must have remembered me from yesterday and my
poor pronunciation of Almond which she corrected. Today it seems I
did better as she said “Bon”. We sat at the tables outside the 'cabane' and responded to an E mail from Jill
Nixon. An invite to supper on the Friday with them as hosts. Tim, Suzie and
Ava as the other guests. We’re not home yet and the diary is filling. Ruby
Murray at 78 for the family Wednesday night. Day off Thursday? Jackie Tracey,
Sheila and Callum go to Mother Ivey’s Saturday for a holiday. Well Jackie will
need another one soon! She comes home the following Saturday for a few days
then flies to Glasgow for a long weekend to visit relations. Me? I’m
Billy-no-mates.
The other thing which occupied
us for a while was a three year old, lost boy. An elderly woman approached me,
greatly distressed and asked if I had seen her grandson. I apologised and said
my French was poor. She repeated slowly and I grasped her 3 year old grandson
had gone walkabout. I asked what colour maillot and chapeau he was wearing.
Establishing they were both blue and where her position on the beach was we
spent the next thirty minutes walking up and down searching for the wee fella.
She was frantic as you can imagine. It ended well as by now there were others
searching and he was soon found. She thanked us most profusely for our help,
which we found a bit embarrassing. Jackie said, “That doesn’t make good copy”.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. "Well the papers would rather hear about
English lager louts throwing fridges off hotel room balconies than this goody
two shoes stuff”.
Here was me all these years thinking I was the cynic!
Back at the ice cream lorry
mike set about prepping the evening meal. Pasta.
