Photographic assistant duly arrived at Limoges airport on Saturday whiffing slightly of an assortment of different perfumes which had been applied in duty free, transporting afforementioned new camera along with various other goodies (including bike mags, Saturday's Daily Telegraph, choccie bics and teabags) by means of her squeaky little suitcase on wheels which appears to have developed a mild case of 'supermarket trolleyitis' thereby causing it to steer slightly left instead of straight on.
After a leisurely coffee or two on the cafe terrace and a minor panic attack when I couldn't get the car out of the car park due to inadvertently ripping up the barrier ticket prior to using it for the purpose it was intended which necessitated a brief but somewhat embarrassing conversation with the car park desk man which began with the words "bonjour, je suis un idiot...", we were on our way.
My assistant and I (well, mostly my assistant) then spent much of Saturday soiree and Sunday matin engrossed in the 140 pages of the new camera's instruction manual. A nightmare experience. Although the cover of said item indicated that the contents were written in English, I couldn't understand a word. So, while my assistant busied herself with providing translations into the vernacular, I played around with a variety of miniscule knobs and buttons which eventually led to the taking of the camera's first photo: a not exactly interesting shot of a shadowy table leg and my right foot on the outside terrace of the local caff in Felletin's main square. Having finally figured out how to take a snap, we then set about discovering the complexities of deletion, at which point the cafe manager finally managed to communicate to us that he was about to shut for lunch by stacking a chair on our table. So we headed for home and continued our voyage of discovery over a ham sarnie or two with salad.
By late afternoon we felt we'd finally mastered (not exactly the right word but it'll do) the damned thing and, by way of celebration, we whizzed off for an evening swim at the little sister lake of not-so-nearby Lac de Vassiviere. By the time we arrived people were beginning to leave (a good thing) and it was still very warm (another good thing). However, we'd taken the dogs (not a good thing) which meant only one of us could swim while the other acted as dog handler. We could, of course, have left them at home or cooped up in the Veedub camper but I'm determined to successfully integrate them with society. This is proving to be a dreadfully slow exercise. Been at it for about seven years now. Roughly the same amount of time I expect it'll take moi to get the hang of this fantastic new camera.
