French Leave

I've had a fascinating few days since I last wrote, including visiting Carlisle for a Sunday afternoon and evening, and getting to rural France via Beauvais and the French railway and metro system.
The most interesting bit was Paris for the time it takes to have lunch and change trains. In the old days, the 3:15 train from Montparnasse heading south was hard to catch if flying from Glasgow, as one only had about 1hr and 50 minutes for lunch. Not enough to savour it properly. This time, I had a whole 3 hours, but sadly refrained from sampling the wines as I needed my wits about me to get the right train.
At Montparnasse, of course there is the famous black obelisk, which is the tallest building in France. It was built over 30 years ago, and the story goes that the developers just wanted to fill a big hole with a square block. At the time, the market was a bit soggy for offices, so the architects came up with the idea of a landmark building. The only problem was that it broke every rule as to height and density in Paris, and looked dead in the water - until ( I believe) a junior in the architect's office came up with a cunning plan.
" Why not" he said " Buy the two blocks next door which are going cheap." I'm sure he was looked at as if he had two heads ( happens a lot to me), but he continued.." Then average the height over the whole site..."
Brilliant! So that is why there is the massive tower, and alongside it a one and a half storey Galleries Lafayette stretching as far along the road as the tower goes up.
I noticed lots of police in vans, cars, motorbikes and even push-bikes, who finally picked up a chap who was clearly the object of their search. Everyone was very well behaved whilst the boys in white ( mostly) rushed about.
I like the enlightened entertainment policy that pertains on the Metro. Not only do you have to have a licence, you have to have a quality test before they let you on. On Metro line 4,on Tuesday they had clearly got all the saxophonists together, as there was one at every stop, and at one point a whole combo even got on the train, playing not only jazz, but swing, blues and at one point even classical.
On my way back on Sunday, I was delighted to see and talk to two proper pilgrims, complete with staffs and shells who were going to walk to Santiago de Compostella They had just come from the UK to the Gare du Nord, and were considering where to go to start walking. There are two main ways from France, the one via Tours and the other from Vezelay. I suggested the Vezelay one - its prettier in my view. From the Spanish border its pretty indivisible. They were planning to spend about 4 months on the walk, and be at the Christmas service in the Church. They had the light of the Lord in their eyes - and love for each other too.
And so to Beauvais once more. There is an excellent Bistro opposite the station where I now take my evening meal, as the bus for the airport leaves there at 8pm. On the way, there was a lady standing beside a set of traffic lights. The driver pulled in, the lady hopped aboard, kissed the driver and handed him his supper - and none of your sandwich rubbish either. He had a hot meal which I saw him openeing as he had a 30 minute wait for his return journey.
In France, C'est la Vie.

Around Europe with no clothes...

I apologise for the lack of recent posts.
I have been away without any luggage for a week.
What happened was that at 06:30 on last Monday morning I left my suitcase on Glasgow station. The police when I phoned them were very nice about it, and delivered it home by 07:30. At least they didn't blow it up.
As I was picking up a car in Geneva, I was able to get into France en route elsewhere, and Carrefour provided me with knickers, a couple of shirts, a pair of trousers and some socks. Razor, toothbrush & paste, and deodorant had been acquired at Liverpool airport. Why Liverpool? Because the Easyjet flight was only £29.
I thoroughly enjoyed my luggage-less week. It was made all the more attractive when, on getting on the train back to Glasgow today, there were no seats and nowhere to put anything as it appeared the contents of the Glastonbury Festival had decided to take my train north, complete with tents, dogs, umbrellas and welly boots.
And the train was only 2 hours late as well....

Night Work

For those of you who are afficionados of Irwin Shaw, you will know that this was one of his earlier works - and rather better than most of his more recent offerings.
I was reminded of it as I made my way through the night to Luton Airport - where my family insist I have my second family who live somewhere between checkin and the departure lounge.
For reasons too dull to recount, I ended up in Luton bus station at midnight - with an hour to wait for the bus to take me to the airport.
Of course, there was nothing open, apart from a shop that sold chocolate and hired taxis, and the chap behind the counter reminded me of the hero of " Night Work" - only there for the money and the off-chance.
As I've remarked before, the creatures that inhabit the overnight travel world are an exotic bunch. Waiting for a bus to Edinburgh were a group of 2 girls and 3 boys from America who were going to Edinburgh. They were clearly doing the Europe on USD5 a day thing, and were delightedly telling each other what an adventure they were having. They took pictures of each other huddled together against the cold, and one of them got out his sleeping bag and got into it.
Another fellow traveller was on his way to Berwick - having done his boss out of a train ticket cost and was taking the bus to save money.
But back to the vendor of chocolate. He also sold hot drinks and Pot Noodles.
None of the things in the shop actually had a price, apart from the coffee which was GBP1.49.
I've no idea what the price of Pot Noodle is, although I have eaten it in the past. The shopkeeper managed to sell three to the American boys for GBP12, which I'm sure is OTT.
Of course, he did supply them with hot water ( and a plastic fork), explaining all the time that Pot Noodle was a kind of health food that people in the UK used to enhance their well-being.
Now I suppose I could have told them what rubbish this was, and that Pot Noodle was almost a cliched joke in the UK, but I was interested to get their reaction to it.
They duly followed the instructions and stirred for the required time.
They tentatively tried it. Their faces gave nothing away.
One of the boys offered a girl a taste. She took a tiny nibble.
The boys started eating more confidently.
The girl who had tried it went and bought herself one.
Still nothing was said.
They finished the pots and threw them in the bin.
" Well," said a boy" I guess that's what they call an acquired taste. But I can feel it doing me good. Maybe we should take some home."