We all had a bit of a lie in this morning, a well deserved one. Then Christophe, Virginie and Sasha headed off to the local farmers’ market on their bikes while I did some blogging and emailing.
Enjoying Breakfast:
After a lovely lunch which included some incredibly tasty orange tomatoes, it was back to work on Betty. Christophe began the process of troubleshooting the non-starting problem and it turned out to be that the injection pump of the new motor just wasn’t functioning. This wasn’t great news as the older, non-injection pump on the other motor was thought to be the source of my starting issues that have plagued me since I left England. Around 5pm, things were looking bleak. We’d spent many hours and hundreds of Euros and still Betty was on life support. Christophe tried calling the seller of the engine as now we knew that the gearbox and the injection pump weren’t working...thankfully it sounded as though the core part of the motor was okay when we tested it by towing Betty around the block with Christophe’s vehicle. We did a bit of searching on the Internet see if there were any pumps nearby that we could get our hands on...but to no avail. Alright, it looks like putting the old, potentially not reliable, pump on the new engine is our only option. That will have to wait until tomorrow as tonight they are getting a babysitter for Sasha and we’re meeting up with some of their friends for dinner.
Christophe cooking again...note the small potato in mid fall (by his knee):
We headed over to the condo of a couple, Pierre and Laetitia (a different Laetitia than last night – I don’t think I’d met a Laetitia before and here we are, two in two days). Their chic place was on the fifth or sixth floor with a view out over the Arcachon Basin. It was already fairly dark and with the tide out, exposing a lot of muddy sea bottom, it wasn’t showing its best side but I could see how it must be a wonderful view. I was surprised and impressed by Pierre’s obviously rehearsed attempt to provide me a warm welcome by stumbling through “Pleezed to meet you.” Very cool. I know I was stumbling through a lot of my French the rest of the evening but it’s all about trying...right?!?
After a drink we headed out to a nice pizzeria and enjoyed a fabulous meal. Sorry Italy, but I had yet another pizza that surpassed any I had in your country. France actually has some really fantastic pizza as this wasn’t the first good one I’ve had. With bellies full, we went for a stroll along the waterfront before calling it a night. Very fun evening.
Dinner at the pizzeria:
Super friendly and helpful Christophe:
A happy Dave:
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