6 May Paris to Manchester to Dublin

I had to get my money’s worth out of my two day Metro pass, so I visited the Eiffel tower before breakfast on our last day while Deb kept up with her dreaming. I took a photo of its bottom, which I thought was very attractive (the tower, not Deb’s dream).
I was very worried about my Ryan Air flight to Dublin, so was on edge all morning wondering if the check-in to Dublin would go badly, with uniformed men looking threatening and stern and telling me my bag was too black, too large, too heavy etc, and I was too naive, too uninformed, too poorly dressed etc to travel with Ryan Air. The ticket cost €10 but the extras mounted up to about €35, and I had received emails threatening fines of up to €25 if I didn’t have my boarding pass, if my bag was too heavy, or if I just hadn’t read something in the fine print that they were going to get me for. I was suitably frightened. The flight from Paris was very amusing – even Mista badger thought it was funny, and he is usually quite demure. We were immediately offered the opportunity to save 49 pence if we bought a certain sandwich on the flight, and were bombarded with messages of safety in flight etc. Deb pointed out how lovely it had been in our linguistic incognito cocoon, with no linguistic noise interfering with our important thought patterns. She’s right, though the French are much less in your ear so to speak with announcements.

Deb and Mista Badger were quite entertaining to travel with. At the airport I was barely at coping level, having a funny nagging feeling that something was wrong (stick with the blog and you’ll find out what it was), whereas they were definitely in it for the ride. So, while I meekly handed over my water bottle to the French security people (who seem to have followed America in deciding that water bottles are dangerous), Deb stood a while and drained hers, chatting with the staff, introducing them to Mista badger, and generally being affable. She attempted to get through the security process with a small piece of cheese, some salmon mousse, a bottle of cider and a baguette, and somehow there were four or five women around her holding up the food and chatting with her in French (because that’s what they were), but sadly, her cider was confiscated. She took it very well. I tried to photograph the event for the blog, but the French weren’t having a bar of it, in case I managed to capture an important piece of French security on film. Don’t start me on the Rainbow Warrior – I had forgotten about it until now.

The strangest thing on the flight was the announcement that we absolutely should not go ahead with cosmetic surgery because they had an Elizabeth Arden product that was as good, maybe better, and much cheaper. I felt it was unfair to announce something like this on a flight when I wasn’t allowed to use my mobile phone, as of course I absolutely had to cancel my cosmetic surgery and buy the Elizabeth Arden product instead, but because they were mean about phones, I wasn’t able to do this. We were pleased to be offered opportunities to save 49 pence if we bought a cup of tea, so quickly went ahead and bought one each, smugly joyous over our little savings. After all, if we put our savings together, we would nearly have a pound. We took pictures of the in-flight card showing people who had been unable to save 49 pence. Understandably, they were most upset.

Here’s what we thought of France. Not enough dunnies (we had to rush Deb back home on the last night as we couldn’t find a place for her to pee, and I wasn’t allowed to say anything funny for an hour), very friendly and relaxed, quite French (oh la la, chic alors etc), good for coffee, clothes, pastries etc. So to sum up, go to France unless you want to go to the toilet.

Actually the Ryan Air people were really nice and not at all mean – I was so relieved I nearly kissed the check-in lady, and the flight itself was fine. I had quite a wait in Manchester, as the time zone was different. Fortunately it was in my favour, with extra time – had it been the other way around I might have missed my flight. Such are the perils of travel in foreign climes and times.

The spare time in Manchester gave me an opportunity to get out my dongle (I can't beleive it really is called that) and catch up on my emails. I found, much to my surprise, a letter to Deb saved as a draft, marking the spot where we would meet in Paris. I also found a letter to her, also saved as a draft, asking her to reply. No wonder she didn't have the map of where to meet.

5 May - Deb, Jill and Mista Badger in Paris

If you like this page, you may also like this one from my travelling companions, Miss Gillanders and Mista Badger.
http://sablegerbil.blogspot.com/

I got up early and went to the pharmacy around the corner and explained that I had fallen yesterday and hurt my ankle, and needed a bandage, and the homeopathic remedy beginning in ‘a’ that I couldn’t remember the name of. I was very pleased with my French coping skills and was able to strap up my ankle for some support, and put arnica on what was turning out to be a rather black and swollen ankle. I told Deb we might have to use buses from time to time, and she was very patient with me and regularly asked how my uncle was. I had forgotten that she is English and kept thinking she was asking about Uncle Jack, who (if you had read this blog from the start you would know) had just turned 90, and wondered how she knew to ask about him.
Deb brought her own tea bags, being English, and though I quite liked the breakfast, she found it had too much sugar in it. I said she should try America if she wants sugar. They even put it in the conversations over there.

I ate so much I needed very little for the rest of the day. We visited a textile exhibition in Gobelin that I was happy to go to in case we saw some goblins, but we didn’t, except on the tapestries. I saw a lovely set of red embroidered chairs but I wasn’t allowed to take them away. We sat and drank coffee for a while and felt quite French until the waiter spoke to us in English, and we visited the Louvre outside places and took photos of the tourists. Deb gave some money to a boy and I chastised her for encouraging him to beg. As it was too late in the day to admire the art works within the Louvre walls, and we felt a glass of wine coming on, we ensconced ourselves in a suitable Louvre environment under the cloisters, and with Mista Badger, enjoyed a quiet reflective drink. I was pleased to have seen the cleaners attending to the dirt left by the tourists at the Louvre, as I like things to be clean. That in itself was a work of art.

I need to introduce you to Mista badger, who to the uninitiated might be a badger puppet, is actually a close friend of Deb’s (sorry Mary, Celia et al) and enjoys travel to foreign climes, whatever they are. Perhaps they are places where the climate is foreign, but you can get that by going to Wellington for an hour. Anyway (where was I?), Mista Badger had never drunk alcohol before, so I was a little on edge (I have a nervous disposition) in case he overdid things and fell off his perch so to speak (do badgers have perches?) but he didn’t, as the pictures show. He loved Deb’s vin chaud, and I loved the glass as well as the vin, so took several pictures. I went to the toilets to look for the famous louvre windows (sort of glass venetian blinds), but couldn’t find them anywhere. I assume the Louvre is named after these windows, so I thought they might have done the decent thing and put some in the dunnies. The hand basin was interesting, so I photographed that instead. I think they copied the design from Middle Earth Tiles in Newmarket, as they sell them there. I was becoming suspicious about the authenticity of the art works inside the building, and thinking it was just as well we hadn’t paid to go in.

We also went to the Moulin Rouge so I could photograph the windmill and say I had been there. I think we ate feral strawberries for lunch (Deb was very taken with the food shops and had to photograph everything in them) and more cheese for dinner. We‘re not big spenders, and I doubt if our visit registered even a minor blip on the French tourism expenditure statistics, but it’s likely that Deb’s presence in France was noted, as she photographed absolutely everything (she always takes her camera when she goes to Paris), talked to absolutely everyone, and absolutely had a good time. Me, I’m the quiet one.