The TGV from Paris Montparnasse to Bordeaux flies along at just shy of 300km an hour, covering the nearly six hundred kilometres in little more than two hours. The landscape, burned brown by the just abated heat wave such that the furrowed fields were rendered indistinguishable from the bleached grass, flashed by. Apart from the speed and the scorched earth outside, the journey seemed oddly familiar – travelling families, backpacks, insufficient luggage space, incomprehensible seat numbering systems – reinforcing a welcome sense of continuity on our journey into the unknown. For this was the moment of truth. This time we were picking up our keys.
Half way between Paris and Bordeaux the landscape changed, as the countryside became more undulating, large swathes of woodland appeared more frequently and the first green ranks of vines appeared. Still, the sun shone down out of an unbroken blue sky and emptied irrigation ponds lined the tracks. Unlike the UK, the great European drought of 2018 still had France in its grip.
However lyrically one tries to observe, record and describe life passing by, the prosaic reality of life soon butts its nose in. Sure enough, crushed between travel bags attempting to eat a French take away lunch proved less than incident free. Having safely navigated a ham and cheese baguette, the strawberry tartelette that followed proved a little more tricky, spilling sticky glaze onto both my travel journal and myself.
Not to be undone, Ann then proceeded to spurt fruit salad juice liberally over the same journal. This brought to mind the infamous occasion when, I having just become the proud owner of a brand new MacBook Air computer laptop [notice the future-proofed writing there?], in the process of opening an individual sachet of train milk, Ann gave my brand spanking new keyboard a liberal milk bath. The lesson I had not learned of course is never to travel with precious things and Ann together. She is an expert in launching food products where they are not normally best appreciated. If you ever invite her round for dinner, avoid asking her to pour the wine.
As the train sped along at an unfeasibly rapid pace, lorries and cars seemed to crawl along the motorway running alongside us, like shiny carriages from a bygone age, polished up for some state carnival. By car, the journey would have taken us a very long day, if not days. Instead, here we were being sped towards our destination in a suitably advanced manner, a metal tube transporting its human cargo, including ourselves, to destinations unknown.
An apposite description so it appeared. We only had vague ideas about the future, our ability to remain in France past B-Day 2019, our proclivity or otherwise for improving our language skills. These were important questions to ponder but first of all something more pressing. Most of all, we didn’t know where to find the keys to our new French life, last seen in the hands of the French estate agent, Jeanette. There had been vague arrangements to meet us the next day, but these had been undone in an email to the effect that Jeanette had decided to take time off and would leave the keys in a bar in the next village.
The phone rang. “Hello, it’s Jeanette. I am not in the village. I cannot leave the keys. What shall I do?”
Some firms are trying to mimic the popularity and wide acceptance of 
“We’re here” our taxi driver cried to our surprise. Looking around, we feared for our demise as only shutters and a barricade were visible to our eyes. In darkened street we would meet our maker before our feet had us forsaken. “Save our souls” I cried “let’s be chaps and wrestle them for our rucksacks” Just then, without much ado the shutters rose, there in the blue-black night a hotel concierge, a shining light.
Figure 1 Famous fizzog & full set in natural environs
On occasion, when not too dazed, we caught sight of the Sun Koshi River. We saw white-capped mountains, terraced valleys, plenty of temples. It was exciting. We needed to walk. Alighting in Mudhe, we were now on our own.
