James' first drink driving charge.

Murphy's law (sorry John) things were going too well and it was time for a challenging day and yesterday challenges came in spades.
The story begins with our arrival in Beziers, a lovely old town filled with grand palaces and apartments. But it's a city which has seen better days. The palaces are crumbling and decaying and home to what appears to be poorer muslim families from Northern Africa. It's a beautiful town with wide leafy boulevards and gardens just waiting to be gentrified. Known for its wine and bull fighting, it is definitely off the tourist map as we saw very little evidence of other tourists. Wandering the streets we stood out with our big camera, lost expressions and sensible walking sandals. We'd picked up an unsafe vibe so were careful as we walked through the alleyways at night, keeping the kids close by (or as much as you can when they are teenagers who like their space). I had reserved a car parking place so we could safely garage our car overnight. But James, having checked with the hotel
about the safety issue, was happy to leave it parked in the street below our hotel room. Hmmm.
After a bad nights sleep on a rock hard bed and boulder pillow, we went downstairs for breakfast. Croissants, coffee, apple tart and yoghurt all very pleasant. James popped out to check the car and returned a while later looking like he'd seen a ghost. He had found an official looking note attached to the car window. A French woman passing by read it and told him he had been charged with drink driving and had crashed into a number of cars. He was required to attend the police station the next day. Huh?! But we were going to Barcelona and James, to my knowledge, hadn't woken up in the night to go drink driving and crashing cars. It just didn't make sense. Had we strayed into someone's territory, were we going to be bribed, who had been watching us? Grr, we should have parked the car in the garage. I could feel the need to say ' I told you so!', being the evil partner I can be often. Instead, I raced out to check out the crime scene. We noticed other cars had similar notes and white scuff marks along the drivers' side, some quite badly damaged. Our car had two streaks of white paint but thankfully no damage. James was able to remove the white paint easily. Next thing the Frenchwoman James spoke to earlier returned, and said, 'it's a joke, it is not written on official paper and many other cars in the street have them'. Then she promptly grabbed the police notice out of James' hands and ripped it up. Mon dieu! Such a crazy French thing to do.
We went back to breakfast with James' police notice in 8 pieces hoping the bad dream was over. When we told the hotel hostess she pieced the letter together and said, ' this is an official police notice. You must contact the police on this number. I will do it for you'.
A short time later she returned and informed us that last night a drink driver had crashed into several cars in our street damaging them, and that the Police had left notices on all the damaged cars for insurance purposes. So James was not the drink driver, we were not being bribed, our car had the marks on it from contact with the offending car but was not damaged unlike the others around it, and we could drive to Barcelona.
We left Beziers in good spirits but quickly, vowing to use the garage car parking in future.
A few kilometers along the autostrada we came across the dreaded car accident sign. Traffic slowed to a crawl. We were stuck for close to an hour somewhere in France. Memories of the car accident outside Rome came back..
And we were running late to meet our host for our apartment in Barcelona.
After another two delays due to roadworks and toll booths, we finally drove into Barcelona at 2 pm having been in the car non stop for 4 hours, no break, no toilet stop, no food and James weaving through the traffic at 140 km/h to make up time.
We found our apartment thanks to Madame Tom Tom although James drove up on the footpath a few times and nearly ran some people over. Our lovely host Brigitte told James to wait with the car parked awkwardly in a no parking zone while the kids and I unloaded the luggage and took it up four stories of stairs. In the meantime James had to drive off because he was illegally parked so when I returned to the street he wasn't there. I waited and waited outside the apartment feeling very conspicuous and doing my best not to look like a hooker. Finally James appeared looking frazzled and VERY OVER this whole travel experience. He had been driving around trying to find a car park without success. I know when James has reached his limit because he becomes mute. No talking. We found our way to the long term car park, filled out a form in Spanish (have No idea what we signed up for) then walked back to the apartment, up all the flights of tiny narrow stairs to our apartment. James lay down, still mute. We watched Clan of the Cave Bear in Spanish and Troglodyte. It was good therapy as we finally ventured out for dinner at 9pm. We ate at a bizarre Indian cross Middle Eastern cross Spanish cross Souvlaki hut restaurant that served dishes like Chicken Biryani with Felafels, French Fries with Mayonnaise, coleslaw with olives, yoghurt and chilli sauce. Confusing. But cheap and served by a smiley Spanish speaking Indian man. Fortunately they had Sangria by the litre so we guzzled it down, feeling we were finally in Spain. It was a good end to a hard day. And James' mute button is now off. The End.