Having a friend coming to visit us at a housesit in the south of Spain, high up in the mountains, I wanted to write out directions how to find us. This was the best that I could come up with:

Leave the town on the south side. Follow the tarmac road until you see a sign on your right saying: Welcome! (and more in Spanish).

From that sign, you drive along the road to the second big bend to the right. In the middle of that bend you turn left onto the dirtroad that goes off from there. You follow that dirtroad up the hill.

When you come to a fork in the road covered in red sand, you take the lower road to the right rounding a ploughed field. You follow that dirtroad for about 2 kilometers.

About 25 meters after you reach the lowest part of the second slope, you turn left between the bush and the bamboo, onto another dirtroad.

You follow that dirtroad until you hit a T-junction with a figtree in the middle. Turn right here.

Follow this dirtroad until you reach a ruin on top of a hill. The road turns 90 degrees in front of the property. You STOP there.

Turn the car around and drive BACK on the same road you came up on. After about 10 meters you see a smaller dirtroad going off to the right. This path is the entrance to the house.

Now, see how your TomTom deals with that…

My partner had to attend some meetings in London, and as we are temporarily based in France, I used Google to find the best way to travel over there. Thanks to the man in seat 61, I came across the TGV website. My partner and I both love to travel by train, and with airports being quite a drive away from our current location, we decide to go for that option. And what a great choice!

We leave just after 5am to drive to the station in Poitier. The early morning road is empty, so is the centre of the city. We joke about its ghostlike appearance. It takes us a while to realize that today’s date is the 14th of July, which is a jour-de-fete in France. That explains it! Walking to the station I am in a state of bliss. We have been in the same place in France for almost 4 weeks now, and after having almost continuously been on the road for 3 years, I realize I miss the excitement of going to a new place. The sound of our trolleys, a croissant in an early morning café before boarding the train, the sunshine, the freedom, brings out the traveller in me…. I love it!

The trip up to Paris is very comfortable. It being the 14th of July the train as well as Le Metro is pretty well abandoned. We cross Paris by underground in under 20 minutes and are well in time to have a sandwich before we board the EuroStar train to London. After check-in we have to go through customs, as we will be travelling to another country. The regulations are much less strict than those at an airport. No fuss about us having filled water bottles for instance, or a new bottle of shampoo. And no messing about with weight either. There are people with loaded up trolleys, no extra charge!! A gliding staircase gently floats us down to the train and we find our places. 2 hours later, we have lunch at St Pancras station in central London, and my partner is off to his meeting.

Under 6 hours to get from mid France to the throbbing heart of London. What a gift to be alive in this wondrous day and age!