The Flying Adventures of DOUG

Dear hello!

First things first: if possible, when commenting on my blog, please post under a name I will recognise rather than anonymously. So far I think I know who every comment is from and I appreciate them all!!! It just diminishes the warm-fuzzy feeling when I'm not sure who it's from. Those of you who have used "feeeheeeelings" and "Doug-iski," don't worry, I knew who they were from!

Now, to explain the title...

Today Dad and I went on a massive mission to Gardonne, which is only 15km down the road from Bergerac (I have already mentioned that I'm in Bergerac at the moment, haven't I?). Sounds not far, eh? Try walking it. Actually, we walked 4 or 5 kilometres and then managed to hitch a ride with a very nice Frenchman who was transporting furniture to his new house. Then we asked around the town about work in orchards, had little luck, and started walking back to Bergerac with the intention of popping in on orchards we had seen on either side of the road while whizzing past in the comfort of Michel's (the nice Frenchman) van.

So, we walked and we walked. And we walked and we walked. Eventually we came to a place down a long driveway, where very brown, scary-looking workers were pouring out of the woodwork. We hung around until the chef arrived, only to be told that the team was complet (full).

So, we walked and we walked. And we walked and we walked. Eventually we came to a lane where it was said we could find work. So, we went down to some big sheds and asked around. The man told us we were in the wrong place, and needed to go further down the main road to get to the office.

So, we walked and we walked. And we walked and we walked. Eventually we came to a little house next to masses of heavily laden apple trees. It looked pleasant and friendly, so we went round the back and knocked. Noone answered. So we rang the bell. Noone replied. So we tried both again. Again, noone answered and noone replied. So we waited. There was a little welcome plaque inside the door that said, "Welcome," in English. There were pink flowers and shady trees, and a little lizard living under a bush who came out to bask in the sun, then dashed away inside every time I got close enough to take a photo. We decided to knock again, and this time we got a reply! An old man, who had been asleep told us to look for Monsieur Herman, on the second road to the right, back the way we came.

So, we walked and we walked. And we walked and we walked. And pretty soon we saw that we were heading back to the same place we had just been, with the big sheds. I thought, Hmmm, are we going in circles and wasting our time? But into my head popped the image of the welcome sign in English, and a small voice said, Trust his directions! referring to the old man. So we did, and returned to the sheds asking for Monsieur Herman. And who did we find?

Find out in the next, hare-razing installment of: The Flying Adventures of DOUG!!!

Just kidding. We found, not Monsieur Herman, who it turns out is a massively wealthy man who owns the whole company and has a big manor house with two gardeners. Nor did we find the man (with a tractor) who had told us we were in the wrong place before. Instead, we found the manager of the orchards, whose name is Jean, and who speaks English, has been to New Zealand, thinks New Zealanders are really nice (more cultured and SMARTER than Aussies, who he described as "rough"), AND says that if he was ever to move countries, it would be to New Zealand. So we got on alright. He offered to talk to Monsieur Herman for us and hoped to be able to organise work for us, as well as accommodation (which they no longer offer but may still exist as they used to hire packs of Spaniards many years ago), and he even offered to find out what I might need to do to get a student working visa. He should get back to us by the end of the week. We have his phone number in case he doesn't... Then we left.

So, we walked and we walked. And we walked and we walked. And eventually we got sick of walking and tried (successfully) to hitch again. We were picked up by a man going on holiday to Sarlat who dropped us just outside Bergerac. So we had to walk a few ks back into town, and the point of the story (explaining the title) is that, with all that walking and because I was wearing a singlet, I got terribly sunburnt. Even though I had put on sunscreen (for once, although not on my arms and shoulders). EVEN on my nose, where I had put HEAPS of sunscreen because it is always the first thing to burn. I'm sure none of you are surprised. I do have a reputation for carelessness in the sun. I know that was a slightly round-about explanation, but didn't you learn a lot on the way? I think I killed about twenty birds with that stone (yes, ok, so the stone was the size and approximate shape of Texas, and almost as interesting).

So, I'm very red, but my hair looks cool, because I had a cold shower and dried my hair, then did absolutely nothing and it just happens to look really cool, kind of like a Japanese cartoon character's hair. It's one of my aims in life to be a Japanese cartoon character, like the ones off Digimon, they're my fave.

You'll all be excited to know that I am sending more photos to Nathan tonight to stick on here. I just discovered that my new camera takes photos that are too "big" to send via email, so from now on I'll be careful to take some lower quality ones that are nice and small.

Note for Ali: I took photos of sunflower fields today!!! Actually, I got one the other day, too, but it was of massive mutant sunflowers that are all seeds and no petals and are the size of the wheels of our old tricycle. Can you say Day of the Triphods (sp?)? The photos today were of nice normal sunflowers.

Anyway, I have absolutely no idea of the time, but it's dark (woops) which means it must be late because the sun doesn't go down until about 10:30 over here.

Gah! You have to press the shift key just to get NUMBERS on this keyboard!!! Otherwise, you get odd symbols, like & é " ' ( - è _ ç à (that was numbers 1 to 0). French keyboards are very dumb.

Miss ya! Bye!