World Carp Classic - Offical Global Website
Lake Bolsena 3rd - 9th September 2012
| We’re there, and we’re getting everything ready to welcome you! |
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After a pretty-much uneventful but good trip down from Calais we arrived at the still and sundrenched Madine yesterday afternoon. As always, though, there was one thing at least along the way that provided a humorous moment. As we swung off of the motorway to begin the last 20 miles of our journey we pulled up at the automatic toll barrier, and I instantly recognised it as a prime opportunity to rid myself of at least some of the contents of the bulging bag of French coinage that I had accrued over many years. We’re in France, so obviously the payment machine was situated on the passenger’s side of the car and Ash, one of the film crew was occupying that seat and proceeded to feed the machine with various coins from my bag. Patiently he proceeded to put aside any of the coins that had been rejected by the machine, and there were a few, it seemed. Luckily, as there were two automated toll machines, nobody pulled up behind us, as Ash was seemingly having a problem in getting the machine to accept some of the coins. Slowly, as the minutes ticked by, the digital display indicated each moment of success and with each acceptance came what was the now customary cheer. With the indicated status of ‘€8.70 inserted’ finally reached, and with the target fee of €9.70 now within sight, the cry of one more euro went up, and at that precise moment Ash hit the jackpot... the machine timed out and in Vegas style, it dumped the €8.70 he’d painstakingly managed to put in!  A brief moment of silent disbelief was quickly replaced by peals of laughter, but that too was soon to end almost as abruptly as it had begun. When Ash then tried to feed the ejected money back into the machine it simply refused to accept anything at all and, for whatever reason, neither did it give us back the ticket to restart the process, so we were faced with a bit of a problem. Admitting defeat in getting the machine to accept coins, I bit the bullet and passed first a €10 note, then a €20 but both were rejected and we were at impasse! Pondering our dilemma, I realised that there must surely be a failsafe remote assistance facility, and as there was nothing obvious to indicate it on the machine I got out of the car and wandered around the facility to check it out. I found what is best described to be an open sided steel cupboard of a similar size to a shower or toilet cubicle and I was just about to use it as the latter when I noticed a button on the wall below a small perforated circular area. There was nothing to indicate what the button was for and, after checking above my head for any sprinkler system (you never know, the French aren’t shy!) I pressed the button and spoke an optimistic and echo-like “HelloooOO” into the perforated area. The greeting of “bonjour” was like music to my ears and my statement “barrier kaput” was replied to by a French lady in English, result! I was asked to return to the car and wait for instructions, which I did... “can you place the money in the machine” She instructed. Realising that I would now have to insert a note rather than the change, which, causing much laughter, Ash had by now discovered to be an assortment of Euros and old centimes and French francs, he shoved the €20 and not the €10 into the machine, and to my delight I now had another €10.30 in coins to add to my ever-bulging bag of loose change, cést la vie! Anyway, it’s now day two for the assembled 20-strong crew and directly after a wholesome and hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs the various small groups split off to begin their tasks for the day... mine being of a much more leisurely nature initially, to write something for my daily blog for you (bless you all!). I sense that this may take quite some time and you might not actually get to read this until late this evening! :D More tomorrow folks Stay right up-to-date right here on my blog - I might sleep a lot, but I don’t miss very much, you learn to sleep with one eye open where I come from! Tight lines Steve |
As we only arrived here just yesterday there really isn’t too much to tell you, so I will fill an otherwise blank page in my blog with a few words to let you know that I’m now set up and ready to go with my daily blog.
