Coincidence

As predicted, not many miles are being walked this week. A measly 2 kms yesterday, but we do have the excuse that we drove 700 kms, from Rome to Le Rouret, in the hills above Nice. Normally, when visiting Italy, we either fly back and forth or, if we have goods to transport to or from Nicola, we take the car on the ferry from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, which gives us a total of 400 kms driving each way instead of the 1400 kms each way if we drove round the coast.

This time, we ferried to Italy but we have driven back because we wanted to visit the lovely Scriven family - Jonathan, Kerri, Julia, Patrick and Henry. They are from Washington DC but are spending several years in France, where Jonathan is a teacher. We had them as neighbours for two months in summer 2008 and became firm friends. They are as nice as we remembered.

By an amazing coincidence we had an e-mail the other day from Mike, who has been following my blog for some time and who recently made a kind donation to Pancreatic Cancer UK through the blog. Mike asked if, on our way back from Italy, we would by any chance be passing anywhere near his home because he would love to meet. As I said above, it is very unusual for us to drive home this way but this time we are doing so. The amazing coincidence is that Mike lives only 10 minutes away from Le Rouret and we met him this morning for a couple of coffees and a couple of hours of chat and bonhomie.

By the way, as this is a blog about walking, I should perhaps mention that we did manage to clock up about 8 kms this week, but I continue to think that this week will be more or less a write-off. For instance, tomorrow we shall be driving another 700 kms, which does not allow much room for walking.