I've just driven clear across western Europe, in a 16 year old car, without air conditioning, with nothing but a portable radio with poor reception and only one CD.

The CD in question is Neil Diamond. Live, unfortunately.

Do you know how Bruce Springsteen recorded Blinded by the Light, which he wrote but Manfred Mann recorded and made into a hit? Bruce's version isn't very good. Neil does this with Red, Red Wine, which he did record first and very nicely, too. However, on the live album, he performs it as a cross between UB40 style and Vegas lounge lizard. Ouch.

Daydream Believer fared a bit better. A bit.

Anyway, Miss Kitty and I are in Munich, her new home. I am at a cybercafe, using a German keyboard, which I hate because I am a touch typist. It wouldn't be so bad if the z and the y were not reversed, or if the ' was where it is supposed to be. I shall just have to endeavor not to use contractions.

First, we went to Madrid to see Janet, which was fun. Then we drove across Spain in the unbearable heat, stopping in Girona.

Then the car started to act funny and stall repeatedly, necessitating a lot of faffing around in the heat of Beziers, France, with no real result except sweat and frustration. Also, neither of us speak French, and mechanics tend not to speak English. I did my best with pidgin French, Spanish and Italian. They knew what was happening, but showed no real interest in finding out why. Bunch of bastards, really.

We limped the car to Nimes, which has a garage that the folks back in Portugal found for us on the internet. Nimes is lovely. It has an amazingly well preserved Roman temple, and an ampitheater as well. Plus, the people are nice, the food is fab, and it's just all around lovely. The next day, we took the car to the monolingual, but nice garage, who said we needed to go to the Ford dealer's garage.

Then his wife jumped in her car and led us across town, at high speed, to the Ford place which, amazingly, boasted someone who spoke English.

Unfortunately, it was only a temporary garage, since the real one had burnt down the week before. So it was off to orange, where we found a Midas, after driving around looking for the ford place, which was closed when we found it. Another guy from another garage had us follow him to get there, too. But the Midas, which I spotted while we were driving around, fixed it right up.

Turns out we did not need a specialist ford garage after all. We even had a fine French meal whilst Mr. Midas did so.

After that, it was pretty uneventful, except for the heat and lack of A/C-- the rest of France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany to Munich, where it is just as hot as Portugal ever was. More so, since there is no breeze to speak of.