Most beloved fellow house-dweller and I have just been on something approaching a “grand tour”. (He informs me we’re gonna do a proper grand tour when we retire… in a few months time. Hmmmm… dream on, I say!)

So on Friday we walked to the train station, heavily loaded down with luggage. “Let’s leave a bit of time so we don’t have to rush with the bags,” I said. Yet still the train was well and truly in situ on the platform while we were still on the opposite side of the subway!

But at least we caught the plane. (Last time we missed it by a mile!). And we landed in beautiful sunshine in La Rochelle, Western France.

One night in the non-descript town of Niort, and we set out to a little hamlet in the countryside for a 24-hour celebration.

Forgive the cliche, but there are some people who do mark your life very deeply, and for me, two of these people are Sture and Ingrid Larsson. Originally from Sweden, they came to France in 1968 as newly-weds, to begin a missionary life there which has lasted 40 years. In this day and age when we like to keep commitments to a manageable length, and hedge our bets a bit in case God has got the plan wrong somewhere, I admire the sacrifice that made them lay everything they knew and were familiar with down, and come to a country, learn a whole new language and culture, just so that more people might know the good news of who Jesus is and what he’s done.

My connection with them came because they led the church in Laval (North-western France) where I worked for a year during my uni year out. Their love and faithfulness, not just to their work and their adopted country but also to us OMers, made a huge impression on me. What’s more, Sture taught me a huge wealth of wisdom about prayer, intercession and spiritual warfare. His teaching (along with that of 2 or 3 other people) has formed the bedrock of my understanding of this stuff. It’s not that these few people are more “right”, or have better theories; it’s that I have seen their teaching shape their lives, and their lives bear out their teaching, and so I’ve known it’s safe truth to stand on.

After 40 years, this amazing couple are retiring… and still not going back to Sweden! So 30 or so of us were there as a surprise, to celebrate with them and see them cheerfully into retirement. There was much food, much speech-making and much fun.

(Of particular note was Phil and I getting lost in a wood somewhere and having to clamber through brambles in my best top! I thought I was surprisingly patient )

Then, having said our goodbyes, we boarded a train or two and made our way down the west side of France, to the Spanish border. Our train pulled in just as the Euro 2008 final started!

We munched a brief snack – which had come at great cost, as the waiter spoke no English or French, and the Spanish in us just wasn’t flowing – and then slept remarkably well, with no hint of marauding fans, in spite of the outcome of the match. Perhaps because we were in Basque country?

On Monday we made our acquaintance with the excellent bus service in Spain. We were going to hire a car, but for various administrative reasons this proved impossible, which actually turned out to be a God-send. We did all the travelling we needed to without having to spend as much as the car would have cost – though this was in part thanks to our lovely friends who picked us up from the middle of the bustling Spanish city half an hour’s drive from their home.

And so we descended on said lovely friends’ self-catering apartment near Oviedo.
(www.andarinas.es for more info on hiring it!)

48 hours or so with good friends and lovely Godchildren… what more can you ask? We ate al fresco, we visited the local bear encampment (a new French boyfriend bear has been introduced, to increase the bearic population, though the ladies were not looking impressed at his wooing techniques!), we met some of their friends, and we went shopping in a posh Spanish shopping mall… all of that being interspersed with having my hair brushed to death (almost) by my beloved budding hairdresser Goddaughter, being driven around by my beloved Godson in his car (AKA his bed), and being sat upon cutely by my newest Goddaughter, who is the grand old age of 6 months! They are kids with an amazing zest for life, and it was a pleasure to be pushed from pillar to post (pillow to hairbrush) by them!

And their parents have been friends for a long long time, so it was lovely to spend time with them, and to see for real the life which we have been hearing about for two years or so now.

On Wednesday we clambered into another of those excellent buses, and wended our way to Bilbao. We had a few hours to spare so walked around it a bit. It did not impress the sighted contingent of our relationship

The Easyjet plane was a bit delayed, and the airport was a miserable failure in its inability to provide me with anything bearing any resemblance to vegetables, but eventually we boarded the flight and made it to Stanstead.

By 1:30am (that’d be 2:30am to us!) we had made it to a very lovely hotel in London, and the plush room and huge comfy bed went someway to salve my weary soul.

And then the next morning, after a tasty breakfast, we came home… feeling like we’d been away months, but glad we ventured forth.