Day two in Corsica!

The maintenance technician came out yesterday morning to look at my heating system and after about 45 minutes showed me something they call a gicleur (nozzle/spout?) which was blocked and thus not allowing fuel to flow. He changed that to the tune of just €20 so I figured I was all set to go - but I'm not totally convinced as yet. I asked him to turn the heating off for me as the programming on that thing is probably similar to the dashboard on the space shuttle (in my humble opinion) but I still don't seem to be getting the hot water kicking in. Think I'm gonna have to call them out again if it doesn't kick in tonight! Anyway, thinking everything was going swimmingly I set off to go to Jordan and Jen's yesterday afternoon as I was going to take care of Charlie for a few hours while they were out. Only problem was, when I went to lock the front door, it wouldn't lock!!! This isn't the first time this has happened, so taking my trusty can of DW40 (which I just happened to have handy) I hosed that bugger down and set off with fingers crossed as I didn't want to be late. I'm thinking I may have to get the lock changed, which in and of itself isn't a big deal, but sometimes it's the little things that really get to you isn't it - or is that just me?

Anyway, day two of our trip was spent heading north to Ile Rousse, which was where we spent three nights in our first hotel. It was "founded by Pascal Paoli - considered to be the father of the country - in the 18th century" and while our guide went into his life in great detail I find I tend to tune out if I'm standing at the back of a group and someone near me is yacking. That being said, he seemed to have gone into exile on more than one occasion, having spent 21 years in London alone the first time, so me being a peasant I often wonder how people can "win wars" by being out of the country. I'm guessing he was more of a statesman/politician, but more than once I've wondered why de Gaulle was so revered when he spent much of the war in London - but then I guess a dead general is no use to anyone, is he!

Our first excursion this day was to the hilltop village of Sant'Antoninu, which was very pretty indeed but where my friend and I preferred to wander around on our own rather than follow the pack. After a few hours everyone headed back to the bus and guess what - the driver blew into the alcohol monitor and the bloody bus wouldn't start! He was a local driver and was mortified that he couldn't get the bus to start because of the alcohol monitor as he swore he'd had nothing to drink, so he asked our own driver - who was along as a tourist this time (talk about a busman's holiday) - to blow into it too and he confirmed that it wasn't working. So that meant waiting about an hour for the bus company to send someone out to take a look. Turns out there was something wrong with the monitor and after about 15 minutes we were on our way to lunch. Here we ended up at a great little restaurant but where our driver had to reverse the bus down a narrow winding goat track in order to be able to get back out again! Sometimes it's best just to keep your eyes shut!

Balagne - where our first hotel
was located!

Sant'Antoninu
(a google picture - it was impossible
to get a picture from the bus)

Sant'Antoninu - another google picture!

Lunch was excellent but the ceilings in the restaurant were very low, and as I'm sure you all know, some people are just extremely loud, especially with a few drinks in them. There were about four people in our group who fit the bill, one in particular being a bald guy who, while nice enough, always managed to sound like he was yelling through a foghorn! I went onto the terrace to get some fresh air, only to be joined by about another 10 people from our group who were having the same reaction!

From there we headed off to Calvi, which was, I'm guessing, a small town rather than a city, and quite a few of us chose to do our own thing here for the next few hours. There was a lady on the trip with very glacial-looking pale blue eyes (I found her eyes fascinating) and as we were sitting having a drink we got chatting. Anyway, she started telling me about how one time she had been hiking in the mountains when she and her friends came across a man hiking naked!!! I don't remember if she said he was Swiss German or Norwegian, but being a group of women you can imagine what the comments were like - we were in stitches (which was more than this guy was wearing)! Apparently he was picked up by the police and told to put some clothes on - so it would seem it was not a case of naturism as it wasn't allowed there, but rather a case of exhibitionism!

For some reason this lady and I ended up chatting for quite a long time, and she ended up telling me that "her son-in-law had killed her daughter"! I was shocked, thinking that he had murdered her, but she said that no, he was an arrogant bastard and a speed merchant with a big motorbike - hence how her daughter had been killed. Her daughter had substantial life insurance and she was fighting him in court in order for funds from that insurance to be put into trust for her grandchildren, since SIL quickly took up with a new woman and was going through the money at a rate of knots! Luckily for her, her daughter had worked for a firm of sollictors and they were taking up the case on her behalf so she was praying that she would be able to claw back at least some of the money for the children before it was all spent!

Calvi!

Since my friend and I couldn't possibly learn everyone's names on this trip, we got into the habit of giving everyone a nickname. There was "Maggie Smith" (who was nice enough but had an opinion on everything), "Saint Sixt" (the lady who had worked at the château there as a nanny), "Baldy" (for obvious reasons), "Mimi (a story to be told later) and "Madagascar", who, as my dad used to say, always had a face like a smacked arse on her (my dad came from the Bard's own country, as you can tell)! The blue eyed lady knew Madagascar from her time working at the Post Office and disliked her intensely. Apparently the man we took to be her husband had met her through the internet and brought her over to France. She was definitely no looker (I'm being polite here), was probably the only unpleasant person on the trip, bitched about everything - waiters, food, the hotels etc. - and talked to her husband like he was a piece of sh*t in front of everyone! There was hardly any difference in age between her and her husband, so she wasn't ordered from an internet bride catalogue, from what I could see! One night at the hotel our guide took a beautiful shawl to the hotel manager and said that someone had left it in the dining room. Madagascar had walked in wearing just a t-shirt and when she claimed the shawl was hers, Blue Eyes almost had a fit, saying that she was stealing the shawl. Turns out she was, as the true owner came back to reception and asked if anyone had handed it in, so Madagascar had to hand it back! Blue eyes disliked her because she had worked at the Post Office when Madagascar would come in, dragging the husband behind her and "demand" that the Post Office look into money that was disappearing from his account. So of course the PO did - the first time, the second time, the third time and so on! But of course she was spending him out of house and home and when he asked where the hell the money was going she blamed the Post Office every time! The things you hear on a bus trip eh!

Anyway, after that it was back to the hotel where after a stroll along the beach my friend and I came back to the hotel to find emergency services ferrying not one but two of our group out to waiting ambulances. Turns out the bald headed guy was having chest pains so they took him in and one gent had not felt well right from the beginning of the trip so they took him in too - with blood clots as it turned out! The bald headed guy was allowed out the next day and was able to continue on with the trip and the other guy - well they kept him in for a week - and his wife continued on the trip without him???? There's nowt so queer as folk is there - but that's a story for another time!