The Free Air Station

The Free Air Station by Paul Howlett

I was driving my little red Citroen along the French motorway when I saw a “free air” station and decided it was time that I checked the tyre pressures in my car.

I was a little surprised that I had not encounter such an air station before so I took a photo, just for the record.

I commenced to inflate or check my tyres on one side of the car, and when I proceeded to try and get the air hose across to the other side, I found that the hose was too short.  So I started pulling on the hose but it refused to give me any more length. I thought that the hose was stuck.

Then the car behind me, waiting to use the air station honked his horn, and a Frenchman started yelling at me!  Then I realised that I had not looked on the other side of my car. The air hoses are designed to use on each side of the car.  So I stopped yanking on the hose, walked across to the other side of the car and used the hose on that side of the car.  I was embarrassed and I guess the two Frenchmen in the car behind me thought I was another dumb tourist. 

All French rent-a-cars have special number plates (coloured deep red), that tell everybody that you are a tourist driving the car.  This is actually a good thing as I found that French drivers would give you some more space on the roads.  

The way the French drove in 1991 you needed all the space on the road that you could get!!

Travels in Brittany May 1991

Travels in Brittany, France May 1991  by Paul Howlett

I was very interest in looking at the “standing stones” in Brittany.

So after I drove up to the parking area in my little red Citroen, I commenced to walk around these strange rows of upright large stones and rocks.

I had a good walk up and down some of the rows and just wondered what the folk were doing some 2000 years or so ago!

The megalithes are the upstanding stones and the stones with a “roof” on top are called Morbihans.

Somewhere in the middle of Brittany I came across a Menhir, a different kind of standing stone.

I think these stones have a different shape and are big and solitary.

Finally to took a picture of some farmers (again somewhere in the middle of Brittany, mowing grass for the winter cattle feed).

I know farmers mow grass in Australia, but I guess I do not see them mow in such lush “green grass” circumstances.

Time Tangle - (a satire on Daylight Saving Time)

Time Tangle     by Paul Howlett  

The cow farmers in Queensland said that Daylight Saving Time will make the curtains fade, and they did not want the State to adopt such a radical measure.

Down in the deep south of New South Wales, the State adopted Daylight Saving Time with glee.  In fact they have extended Daylight Saving Time for an extra month.   

All the curtains in New South Wales are now in deadly peril, or so some Queenslanders think.

Victoria and Tasmania are in the same predicament, as their curtains are too subject to the deadly Daylight Saving Virus.

Queensland will come to the rescue, as Queensland will petition the Queen of England to issue an edict that all States in Australia abandon the awful practice of Daylight Saving Time and conform to the correct time, as set by GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and never to deviate from it.  

People of Queensland rejoice

 

Loud praises to our pommie* Queen      

We will sing   -  we will sing

We have saved the curtains

All the curtains of the land

No more fading no more pains

Colourful curtains are on hand!

 

                                                                ***

                                                                 
*(pommie = English person)

Alice Without Malice (a fun poem)

Alice Without Malice           by Paul Howlett

I read the story of Alice…

Eating very strange mushrooms

Seeing weird rabbits and mice

Her body ever changing, to wonder

“Where the F*** am I?” she pondered

Along empty corridors of the mind

Meeting people of pride and power

Uttering vicious words all of the time

Petty, ugly, lowdown commands

Off with the head, you’re dead

Headless? or what was that she said

The cat on the fence was a head

And smiling all of the time

Thinking of what she was doing

Making madness feel sublime!  

Visit to Versailles in 1991

Visit to France (1991) Versailles              by Paul Howlett

I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport in May 1991 and drove my little red rented Citroen through the streets of Paris in terror.  I had not slept on the plane and was so jetlagged for my first drive on the left hand side of the road.  It took me over four hours to get to my hotel at Versailles. (It should have been a 40 minute trip, but of course, I as lost in Paris and France for some hours before I found my way to Versailles.)

Hotel De La Chasse (1991)

Sadly when I looked for this hotel on Google Earth some weeks ago, I found that the hotel had changed.  Now totally renovated in 2014, the hotel just says PUB on the outside of the building.  I think that the ambience of the old hotel looked a lot better, in keeping with being close to the Palace of Versailles.

In my hotel room.

I really had a scare after pressing the button of my toilet, in my room of this hotel, as the toilet growled at me in a ferocious sound.  I looked at my toilet in amazement as it growled and shook and shredded everything. Then the “shredder” pumped the sewage along a tiny pipe, situated against the skirting board at the base of the wall. Comprehension dawned in my jetlagged brain; I understood that this hotel was so old that the plumbing was layered on top of the existing floors and walls!

This is the Versailles Town Hall.  I had never seen such an elaborate building for a local government building.  I was to learning later on as I visited more towns in France that most “Town Halls” we all big and beautiful in their own way. (Second photo I took, when I first arrived in France).

Photo of Versailles Town Hall and the Police.  

The police were busy towing away a car that had been parked there illegally.

A day later I saw the police drive up the road, lights blazing siren on only to find that they drove to the late night pizza kiosk. (I assume that they really must have been hungry for a late night snack).

 

Apollo Fountain in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.

Another fountain in the Gardens in the Back of the Palace of Versailles.

Tourists walking about in the Gardens of Versailles

I looked all over the Palace of Versailles, with a jetlag headache.  I was not allowed to take pictures inside the Palace, so here are a few pictures I took outside in the grounds. I, of course bought a book on the interior of the Palace of Versailles, and I have that book somewhere, I hope. 

I do remember on the second time I went to see the inside of the Palace of Versailles that it was so crowded that I was jammed up, (wall to wall of hot human bodies), inside the Palace as I shuffled from one room to another.  That was a very unpleasant experience, as I just kept hearing the announcements in several languages, to beware of pickpocket who could steal all your money and papers!  I realise that I was on a Sunday, with all the local tourists, as well as the international tourists all wanting to see the Palace of Versailles at the same time.  I vowed that if I ever get to see the Palace of Versailles again, that I will visit the Palace in the middle of the week, and as early in Spring as possible.  Then hopefully the sheer number of people will be less next time I get to pay the Palace of Versailles a visit.

    

                                                                 ***