France and Flooding

It has taken someone on Twitter to make me realise that I forgot about blogging.   Sometimes my life is so full that I don't think about time whizzing by.   This past month has been such a time.

I've done a few shows, been to a few parties, and added a few videos onto my YouTube channel.   Added to that I've done a zillion Tweets and done some more teaching/advising on my Magic Days.   That's another thing I have left slip, sorting out the future dates, which I must get round to... very soon.

The Grand Adventure this month was to head off to Macon in France to do some more teaching/advising so Debbie and I decided to have a mini break and drive instead of fly.   Great decision.   We booked to go via the Chunnel but I thought my claustrophobia might come thundering back when the sides of the coach closed down so we made a last minute booking on the P & O ferry.  Great decision.

We drove to the dock, got a ticket, and drove straight onto the ship which left immediately.  The crossing was calm and fast and suddenly we were trying to remember to drive on the 'wrong' side of the road.   It became a running joke as we alternated the job of driving.

At home I had decided that we should travel roads that took us around Paris, not through it, and that certainly on the way to Macon we would avoid the toll roads.     Great decision.   We meandered through small country roads and through the Medieval villages and towns of France.   We stayed in a lovely hotel that had at one time been a monastery in Arras.

The next night found us in Troyes, pronounced Twahhh... or similar.   Can I recommend that you all go there and visit their 'old town'.    Wow Factor Plus.

It was a little bit worrying the next day when the Satnav took us into a farm.  Hmmmm.... BUT then we discovered why we were both so relaxed about it all.   We had no immediate deadline.   All our normal lives we have to be somewhere by a fixed time and this trip we had PLENTY of time.     We got to Macon by teatime and then the mayhem began.

Debbie drove off the next morning facing a 5 hour drive south whilst I was faced with four days of the most intensive convention in which I have ever been involved.   The days started early and simply never stopped.  I talked, lectured, demonstrated, advised, watched, laughed and generally really tired myself out.   When Debbie came back she had to do most of the driving whilst I recovered.  

The last night of that convention was a Gala show in a great theatre.   Unbelievably the sequence of the show and who was doing what was left until the afternoon of the day.   It worked and I was the penultimate act, doing a routine with onions and lemons, red peppers, boiled eggs and a pumpkin.   The audience was in hysterics and BIG thanks to Gaeton Bloom for helping me out with the language.

The last act produced a (no kidding) helicopter.   I laughed when one young man pointed out that you can either spend $60,000 on an illusion or, like me, you could go to the supermarket and get an act.

The year before, apparently, a famous French magician had done a lecture about ME!   He edited together a video of bits I have done over the years, which included quite a few singing routines.   Hey.. the French think I'm a SINGER!!!   A new career beckons on foreign shores.

The drive home was uneventful and the ferry crossing back was as good as when we went and SO much less stressful than an airport.

Right now I am home.   It's raining and there are flood warning everywhere.  Our river is rising fast but if they will not dredge the rivers and/or create 'flood canals' like they have in other countries what do they expect?

I wonder what the morning will bring....