As the month ends Ruth is again in Hampshire, in what is now just the home of her father!
Bob is near Calais ready to cross the Manche tomorrow and come to join her.
With her Mum's deteriorating state in hospital Ruth had spent a week in UK in early April, went back to Fuerteventura for six days to do various health things and perform the pre-migration rituals, and flew to Barcelona with Bob on the 20th.Not much of interest happened in those six days except that Ruth caught a cold (blaming it on the UK trip!)
Greyrocks did also, however, do what it does best and plan the next trip. This was to entail two spells at the usual South of France spots (Canet and Lattes), visit George in his new home near Poitiers, and have a few days on the Canal du Nivernais in Burgundy which we had seen during one of the second series of Timothy West and Prunella Scales' wonderful programmes about canal trips.
But it didn't materialise! The Barcelona bit worked like clockwork - even the Line of Fear! Lattes was sunny for a day, but Ruth was unfit, and then it rained and rained. We stayed four days and then moved to Lattes on Saturday. The journey was dry and we were welcomed back but the forecast was poor so we looked up the V.O. films available in Montpellier and hatched a plan for a wet Sunday:- tram from the hypermarket, lunch opposite the cinema where they offer discounted tickets, "Second Best Marigold Hotel" (which has a bizarre French title), drink in a bar on the "Ouef" and tram back. A reasonable film, but whilst we were watching the heavens had opened, so it was running for cover to get back to a soggy mobile home, and Monday was not much better! By now though weather was not the biggest worry as the news from UK was very bleak. We booked a flight for Ruth to Gatwick on Tuesday, cancelled what we could and Bob planned his three leg journey up to Calais with the car.
As Ruth waited to check in the call came to say the her Mother had died peacefully that morning. Just a few hours later she was at the family home and is there now.
Bob is near Calais ready to cross the Manche tomorrow and come to join her.
With her Mum's deteriorating state in hospital Ruth had spent a week in UK in early April, went back to Fuerteventura for six days to do various health things and perform the pre-migration rituals, and flew to Barcelona with Bob on the 20th.Not much of interest happened in those six days except that Ruth caught a cold (blaming it on the UK trip!)
Greyrocks did also, however, do what it does best and plan the next trip. This was to entail two spells at the usual South of France spots (Canet and Lattes), visit George in his new home near Poitiers, and have a few days on the Canal du Nivernais in Burgundy which we had seen during one of the second series of Timothy West and Prunella Scales' wonderful programmes about canal trips.
But it didn't materialise! The Barcelona bit worked like clockwork - even the Line of Fear! Lattes was sunny for a day, but Ruth was unfit, and then it rained and rained. We stayed four days and then moved to Lattes on Saturday. The journey was dry and we were welcomed back but the forecast was poor so we looked up the V.O. films available in Montpellier and hatched a plan for a wet Sunday:- tram from the hypermarket, lunch opposite the cinema where they offer discounted tickets, "Second Best Marigold Hotel" (which has a bizarre French title), drink in a bar on the "Ouef" and tram back. A reasonable film, but whilst we were watching the heavens had opened, so it was running for cover to get back to a soggy mobile home, and Monday was not much better! By now though weather was not the biggest worry as the news from UK was very bleak. We booked a flight for Ruth to Gatwick on Tuesday, cancelled what we could and Bob planned his three leg journey up to Calais with the car.
As Ruth waited to check in the call came to say the her Mother had died peacefully that morning. Just a few hours later she was at the family home and is there now.
R.I.P. Vivienne
November 1929 to April 2015