15th September
Peter and Lynne parted ways first thing in the morning, as Peter set off on an early train to Berlin’s new airport. He was returning to London to supervise the continuation of the building works on our spare room. The aim is to have the room finished in time for Lynne’s sister’s stay at the end of the month. One could say we are optimists…
Lynne followed suit thereafter, though catching a flight to Toulouse. Back at La Coste, the plumber was due the next day to install a new en-suite shower room, hopefully in time for John and Mary’s visit in October. Lynne is anxious that he finishes in time, as she has to return to London in less than two weeks, for her sister’s visit from Australia.
Our travelling record wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our train tribulations of getting home from our respective airports in London and Toulouse. In London, there was overcrowding on the platforms at Gatwick Airport due to a shortage of trains. Peter managed to catch an announcement that nobody else seemed to hear. A Gatwick Express train, was to depart from another platform, and due to the overcrowding, was made available to all passengers regardless of their type of ticket. Peter and rucksack battled against the streaming publicus to the platform across the rails, allowing him a comfortable seat and journey to get home in time for lunch.
Lynne’s plane landed 40 minutes early at Toulouse Blagnac Airport which was fantastic, but brought her no advantage as her train to Carmaux wasn’t for another 2 3/4 hours. And then it got cancelled. The next train was absolutely crammed full, unable to accept any more passengers, baggage or bikes! Lynne’s focus and determination enabled her to be one of the first on board and get a seat. The seat became even more essential as the train in front broke down, causing a long wait for its removal. All in all, Lynne didn’t arrive home until 8pm, 2 hours later than expected. Fitting train adventure endings to our European travel experience!
Thoughts
It’s been great to take a break from our various home projects in London and La Coste to make the slow overland journey of 3,000 km to Stockholm and then back to Germany. (We will be back in Paris in October to hook up with John and Mary). Railway lines have been starved of investment in Europe before Climate Change demonstrated the necessity of encouraging travellers back on to more environmentally friendly means of transport. We anticipated trouble with the trains in Germany and Sweden and so it transpired. But we had allowed ourselves plenty of time. It was Chris who suffered the worst, with both his outbound and return flights to Stockholm cancelled – so problems with ‘planes – not trains!
In retrospect, we made our half marathon race more challenging by taking our time to get to Stockholm. Even without Lynne’s fall in Paris, we would still have had to manage carrying two weeks’ worth of luggage, sleeping in strange beds with pathetic pillows and not eating nutritiously. This impacted on our 3 months’ training; we were in better shape running in Paris than in Stockholm, just one week later!
Catching up with friends along the way was overdue. We loved them showing us around their local environment with insiders’ stories. We haven’t enjoyed so much cake in a very long time! We are hoping they will all find time to visit us in the South of France. We are even considering dropping in on Anders and Hamida in Sardinia during the winter!
We were extremely lucky to experience an Indian summer. The capital cities we visited all entranced us in the sunshine. It was important and rewarding to be able to holiday together, as we have spent so much of the summer apart.
Despite the race in Stockholm, we feel that we have recharged our batteries, ready for the inevitable issues we shall encounter over our busy autumn.
I don’t know how you have recharged your batteries after such a long and stressful journey but glad that you think you have! Congratulations to Lynne, Peter and Chris on completing the half marathon.
It wouldn’t make for an interesting blog if we didn’t describe the tribulations; compared to the shenanigans in trying to get 2 building projects completed on time, it was a run in the park!