Had a nice sleep-in until almost 8:30, followed by a very lazy morning. I must admit to a couple of errors recently – Colin looked at my blogs from the last few days and pointed out that I’d put some things in the wrong order (seeing the Roman ruins dig in Spain on the wrong day, for example) – that’s what happens when I don’t write my journal every day, even with photos that are dated automatically when I load them to the ipad to guide me. We’ve seen a lot in a short space of time recently and I’m embarrassed to say a couple of the many wonderful sights have gotten a bit mixed up.

Another thing – the traffic chaos on the highway out of Bordeaux yesterday wasn’t anything to do with bad organization by the french (sorry!) – it was actually a fiery accident. A semi-truck that was carrying cylinders of gas had caught on fire – a couple of other semi drivers had seen that it was on fire and had blocked the highway preventing any other cars or trucks from approaching from behind – the driver got out ok before the cylinders started exploding in all directions. Traffic heading south had to stop as well, so it was backed up for miles in both directions. We must have been about 45 minutes after the initial explosions, and were lucky to get off the highway when we did to continue on the lesser roads. Some semis were stuck for up to 8 hours before they were able to continue, although as far as we could find out no one was hurt, thankfully. I had seen a couple of signs as we crossed the highway via an overpass that made me think it was road work being done, and we hadn’t seen any police cars or anything, but obviously that wasn’t the whole story.

Took the little ones out for a walk in the early afternoon – they were on a mission and basically led me where they wanted to go. First destination was the cricket field just on the other side of the river – they both did their ‘business’ and I put the black baggies in my pocket to use – not my favourite part of going for a walk, but every once in a while I must act responsibly.

Next place I was led to was the bar across from the town hall – they had come there for a reason and the bartender knew it – he produced the desired doggie treats for them when he delivered the glass of vin rouge for me.

There was a team of civic workers cleaning leaves from the square across from the bar, and it was kind of funny – they were using a leaf-blower and raking them into piles, but as soon as the piles were made and they tried to gather them up the leaves were blown all over the place again by the wind.

Had a quiet afternoon, made pasta for dinner, face-timed Dominic. I still have a decision to make about whether I’m taking my bike home with me or not, but that depends, of course, on if I think I’ll return to Europe next year, and if I do, will I want my bike…big things to think about, but I have a bit of time.

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