Overcoming difficulties

It's shocking how sleep deprivation so quickly reduces your (my) capacity to deal with things. The b&b is fine, the bed is more or less comfortable, but.... new neighbours arriving in the night woke us up, and it was too hot, and then too cold, and I slept badly.
So the minor inconveniences of the day became grossly irritating.  Having to get up early to drive to catch the train which (as far as Andrew was concerned) was really the sole purpose for coming to Corsica - the Micheline, a 1m gauge mountain railway which connects Ajaccio, Bastia and Calvi.
The glories of the T20 road - a fantastically beautiful valley route, complete with snow-capped mountains in the distance, and interesting industrial buildings along the way, along with old and new river bridges of great beauty - were instantly eradicated by the blithe announcement of the young lady in the station ticket office that today is a jour ferié, so the normal timetable was not running. We'd have to wait an extra hour to get up to Vizzavona, and then wait 5 hours to come back.  And it was going to rain.
We had little choice but my grumbling resentful nature emerged and I was bitching and worrying about not having enough time to sit and paint...
We walked, and we walked and we walked to try to find the Centre Ville of Corte, once the capital of Corsica, but on foot the roads led only to apartment estates and building sites.  I got crosser and crosser, carrying my art materials, feeling time slipping by, and nowhere to sit and choose somewhere to paint.   Andrew picked a sunny spot to stop for coffee, and we were instantly surrounded by a coach load of English tourists, much older than us and being rude to the exasperated waiter when he didn't understand their orders of 'caffuchina'..... He though we were with them. Eventually we established that we were not, and that we spoke reasonable French and loved Corsica. He melted and was charming, but still I could not paint, with the sun streaming in and the fine statue of patriot Pasquale de Paoli looking the wrong way. There is, incidentally, a bust of Paoli in Westminster Abbey. We were allied to him as he was fighting the French to gain independence. We sent Nelson to help him.
Eventually we got back to the train, and set off up one of the most spectacularly beautiful and breathtakingly engineered railway lines in the world, I suppose.  On either side, the gorges and cliff tops march in a parade of splendour. The train rattles and shudders and shakes, its brakes and wheels squealing as it clambers up and up into the mists.
Our arrival at Vizzavona was quiet - we stepped off onto the tiny platform, gazing around at the trees, and two little bars.  That's about it.  There are a lot of signposts telling you about hotels and campsites, and a couple of houses, and two closed hotels, and that's it.  We had 5 hours to kill.  We could hear birdsong, and waterfalls, and up above the snow lay in the crags of the mountains. It was quite chill, and dull.
Just up the road is a fine old hotel, utterly in ruins.  We strolled on, made friends with a man in a sort of shack, and bought two coffees from him. He turned out to be a descendant of the family which built the hotel.  He had so many stories to tell us, in very good English.  His name was Grimaldi. His family was originally from Anjou - a crusader who went to Jerusalem but was shipwrecked on the way home and settled in Sicily. This was a very tall man.   His two sons also settled in the s of Italy, but eventually came to Corsica - and climbed the mountains and found a village with very small women, whom they married.   Their graves are still there, very long, proving how tall they were - 2m at least.
His great grandfather was a doctor in the British Indian Army and conceived the idea of building a hotel up here, for the officer class to come and relax.  He helped build the railway and then his hotel. The officers and their wives and children and servants came, staying for 2 or 3 months at a time.  On Fridays they played bridge. On Saturdays there was a ball (dancing). And on Sundays there was a piano concert. This went on for decades, beyond both world wars.
The grandfather made a lake to collect ice - which was sawn into blocks each winter with mule-power. The ice was stacked (layered with leaves for easy separation) in ice houses and then taken by train down to Bastia.   The snow fell 3 metres deep each winter apart from 1956 when it reached 11 metres and many of the local roofs collapsed under the weight of snow.  Lady Rose Barrington came to stay, doing her researches into traditional life on Corsica.  In the end, the families stopped coming. The Grimaldi family sold the hotel and the new owner shut it up... It was rapidly ransacked and stands today as a dark ruin.   Mr Grimaldi owns a tract of land between the hotel  and the river, which he runs as a campsite for the walkers who come through the mountains. His tiny shop (epicerie) sells the very basic minimum of what anyone might need.  He would not let me take his photograph, as he says, like Native Americans, he believes photographs steal something of your soul.  But he had a nice face.
We had a basic lunch in one of the two bars (filthy at it turned out, and as expensive as yesterday's haute cuisine meal at St Florent), and then we walked in the chilly dark air. I managed to get two or three poor sketches done and we waited and waited for the train back.   Once again we trundled through the most magic of landscapes, rocking along in the little train.  Back at Corte, where it was pouring with rain, we bought bread and bananas and found the car.     Getting back to the lowlands, the sun came out and everything warmed up.
During the day we heard that my uncle had died in Oxfordshire as I thought he would, and Lucie and her James landed safely from NewYork. The connectivity of mobile phones is useful and beguiling, and a million miles from the steady antique evidence of granite and forests.   We have picnicked in the sun on our terrace, strolled on the beach, discussed tomorrow's travel plans and what was best about the day. I liked the way the individual sleepers along the railway line were numbered, and the way the waterfalls adorned the mountains like chains of diamonds.  The clouds of mist on the peaks was constantly changing, making landscape-drawing almost impossible. I liked meeting Mr Grimaldi and hearing all his stories.  The Micheline railway is almost unbelievable, but it actually is the island's main commuter and transport artery through the centre.   Another slice of the old days.