Some of you remember PigPen in the Charlie Brown cartoons who always had a cloud of dust following him. Well, the Barefoot Blogger has a little cloud that has “trouble” written on it that seems to hang over me.

My friend, Geoffrey, used to be the one who always came to my rescue. Since his phone now switches straight over to voicemail when I call, my safety net has expanded a bit. For example, remember Christian?  The friend who saved from sleeping on the curb when I didn’t have my keys when I returned to Uzes in June? (Click here if you’d like to read the post.) Since Christian and the key episode, I’ve stayed pretty much out of trouble. Until last week.

This time it was a real doosey. 

It was Thursday. I’d spent the morning picking grapes at a vineyard near Castillon-du-Gard for the small winery, La Gramière.

BFB with Amy Lillard of La Gramière

Grenache grapes in the vineyard

After a most-delicious “vendange” luncheon — and perhaps too much La Gramière rosé wine — I headed for home, stopping first to buy gas for the car, “Lucy.”

When I parked “Lucy” in front of the pump the nice lady who owns the station came out to speak with me. Because of my bad French we awkwardly passed pleasantries back and forth as I fumbled to put the fuel nozzle into Lucy’s tank. My concentration was on putting together a few coherent statements in French.

The next day, Lucy and I set out for the vineyard to help again with the grape picking.  When we left the underground garage in Uzes, Lucy started puttering. She has always run like a top so I ignored her “hiccups.”  Until we were down the road. A flash of heat came over me.

“OMG! Did I fill Lucy’s diesel tank with petrol?”

All the warning voices came back to me that I had heard when I bought Lucy: “Don’t put petrol in Lucy’s diesel engine. It’ll be a catastrophe!”

“A catastrophe?” I said to myself, “ahh… Lucy’s just got something stuck in her pipes.”  Then I hit the gas pedal so Lucy could blow whatever was in there, out of there.

Speeding out of town Lucy responded well, but then she choked and slowed down. I kept on pushing her, certain the choking sounds would go away. We reached the meeting place of the grape pickers at Castillon-du-Gard, then panic set in. “It’s Friday!” I shrieked in my head. “If Lucy’s in real trouble, we’ll be stuck!”

“Got to get back to Uzes right now,” I told Amy, apologizing for dropping out of the work crew.

“Good luck!” she said.

Back on the road I picked up the phone and called Geoffrey. Twice. The calls went directly to voicemail.

Lucy was really hurting now. As we were chugging along we passed the turnoff to a small village I’d visited before.

“Paschal!” I shouted to myself.

Pachal is a friend of Geoffrey’s who designs swimming pools … and … he’s a master mechanic!

“Bonjour? This is Deborah,” I said to his wife who answered the phone.  “You won’t believe what I’ve done,” I exclaimed. Going over the gas saga and recalling that I had used the “green” pump to fill Lucy’s tank, I waited on the side of the road with Lucy to hear back from Paschal.

“The green pump is not diesel,” Paschal’s wife said, calling back for her husband. “Paschal says drive it over here very slowly and he’ll look at it when he gets home.”

“Drive slowly!” I laughed, “I’ve been speeding Lucy around for the last hour!”

What a car!

Lucy coughed her way to Paschal’s house where she took her last breath. I left her for a diagnosis and, hopefully, a cure.

“It may take several days to fix the problem,” said Paschal’s wife when she called the next day. “You know this isn’t easy. You ran petrol through the whole system.”

“Say no more …” I had visions of Lucy being hauled off to the trash dump.

Sunday morning I received a call that Paschal would meet me at a cafe in Uzes to hand over Lucy’s key. She was OK! And the cost for her repair was very reasonable …. including a full tank of DIESEL!  Yeah Paschal!!!

Now I don’t have to worry about putting petrol in Lucy’s diesel engine anymore.

I’ve already done that!