Sometimes things just happen. The truth of the saying man proposes but God disposes becomes evident more clearly that one might want. In this case, for reasons that shall remain unspecified (if merely to avoid recalling frustrations and a sense of futility), our trip to Bangladesh lasted all of seven hours at Dhaka airport, at which point we flew back home again.
Not often have I felt such relief at landing at Oslo airport :). Nice sunny afternoon with blue skies and sunshine. Makes you feel like everything's alright with the world again. In the week since though, a feeling has been slowing growing on me. Summer is over. It's been raining off an on and the temperatures rarely venture north of the teens.
But what a summer it has been! So as promised, some memories from the France trip then :). No account of a trip to France (aka Cisternes, a very pretty bit of France, tucked away between rivers, hills and correspondingly winding, rolling roads) can be contemplated without an account of the car! So typically we fly in and out of Paris and drive the 500 odd kilometres from there.
The last time we did this trip, we had a Panda. Not the most fun to drive, entertaining for all the wrong reasons. So this time we thought, if they're going to give us a car with a tiny engine, might as well get the tiniest possible car to go over it, at least the power-to-weight ratio will be better! And so it proved to be!! Our minuscule little Fiat 500 was totally up for the job that the Panda had totally failed at: managing to stay close to the motorway speed limits :D.
Unlike last time though, this time we'd decided to stop overnight about halfway and spend a bit of time exploring. Google seemed to think Chateau de Chambord was a pretty good spot, so we ended up staying overnight at a fascinating BnB at Mer and spend most of the next morning exploring the chateau and its grounds. Grand would be a word that comes to mind :).
While we were there the weather calmed down a bit with the occasional shower. It had been almost into the 40s the week before we got there! But the weather was still perfect for going swimming at the lakes!
One of the things definitely worth mentioning would be the trip to Bort les Orgues! Situated at the base of a set of cliffs vaguely reminiscent of church organs, it was quite a nice little town! But I think if one is visiting the area, a trip to the top of 'les Orgues' is absolutely a must. We also went and visited the Chateau de Val on the edge of a lake below which lurks a village flooded by the damming of the Dordogne.
I was particularly fascinated by stories of a previous visit when the lake had been drained for some reason, and the village seemed pretty much preserved, houses, streets and everything! I kept looking into the water to see if I could make out any shadows...
Another awesome experience was a fireworks display held in a nearby town. There was a proper carnival going on! Although I can't now recall the exact occasion :P.
In between little trips and swimming and visiting farmers' markets and such, there was quite a bit of time to just relax and enjoy a somewhat slower pace of life. One might say that being jobless and repeatedly going on holiday would seem to be a relaxed enough pace of life, but I've somehow managed to fill up the days with this or that or the other it would seem, so it was good to get away and not have any plans whatsoever!
I did manage to get properly into the first proper high fantasy book I've read in a long time during that trip too! I've had copies of the Malazan Book of the Fallen on my Kindle for nearly a decade I think, without ever having made a start. As we were packing for the France trip though, I felt a bit at a loss as to what book I wanted to take with me. So I figured, let's just grab the Kindle, hedge my bets :). But Gardens of the Moon went by in a flash!
I particularly love the way the complex story lines manage not to get all the characters killed halfway through the book. (I'm looking at you GRRM! :D) With the individual books taking slightly different arcs of the story line though, I think it would be fun to alternate the Malazan books with something else. We shall see.
So the season of much travels has come to a close. I guess I'm intrigued by what the next couple of months might bring :). In the mean time, there's more sunshine to enjoy, books to read...
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