Shorty Blog

Hint No. 2

Do not put gasoline in a diesel tank*

Chez Le Garage a Gourdon

My god....

Well, backing up,

We were on our way to Gourdon this morning and we had to drive through Cenac (just over the hill from the gite.). We saw that it was market day and hopped out. There we found nocino, or liqueur de noix, or in other words, the green walnut liqueur that I wanted to make. So there was that and a few table linens that we couldn't pass up..and a huge pan of paella that I promised J. when we get to Banyuls, because you can just buy the seafood off of the boats at the port. So , off to Gourdon we went.

It was much more charming when we were driving through on Sunday and I had a distinct feeling of just wanting to leave for most of the time we were there. Not much to see and the kids made do with playing in a public playground that had wafting odors of human waste....so we left.

French Planning

But on our way out of town we stopped at the massive Intermarche..a walmart sized supermarket where we dazedly shopped for food. Beforehand, we filled up on said gasoline, taking from the green pump (instructed by Renault to only take green because it was diesel) The yellow said "Gazole", so that certainly looked suspiciously like gasoline. (Gazole=Diesel!!)

Well, off down the road about a kilometre and the car starts acting erratically and jerking around. Mon dieu. We turn around and go back to the gas station and ask. The woman there actually says, "oh la la" shaking her head, "gazole, c'est diesel" Well, Jesus, Joseph and Mary, have we wrecked the car? No phone, no number for Ian, a car full of groceries and four hot kids. Time for the merdre to hit the fan. It is a long complicated story but, in the end, Ian comes to rescue the kids, who go back to the gite and act impeccably, because their parents aren't there. We tow the car to the garage where they siphon out the 70 E of gasoline out of the car (they had all equipment on the ready, so we have a feeling that this happens more than quite often) and under 50 minutes we are out the door driving to the station to meet Margaret and Steve at their train with 10 minutes to spare.

At home, all is well, thanks to our wonderful children, all of whom kept their cool and were happy to get rid of their parents for a while. Many a drink was had after this.

Car perfectly fine.

Simpler Times

Monday Pique-Nique by the Ceou