Eurostarry

Within minutes of leaving our travel lodge, we were being whisked to St Pancras/King's Cross on the Northern line. We thought we'd done our usual 'leaving way too early' thing but in the end, it was a quick Paul's coffee and time to board.

It was fairly 'airport like' with passport checks and taking all your clothes off to walk through an arch which detects whether you're a good person or not. I was asked to remove my cap. "OK, OK, so I've got no hair. D'ya wanna make something of it, pal?" was what I was tempted to say, but I acquiesced as I always do.

We were then kettled into an impossibly small space for the three eurostar trains which were scheduled to leave. I'm always impressed/concerned by the amount of people waiting to board an A380, but three trains worth is a lot of people.

The train was big. It was long and higher than usual trains.

We were sat at a table of four. Opposite, were two separate French females who both opened lap tops. The stickers on the lids of both revealed both to be of a militant nature. Whether they were both 'on the same side', I couldn't say but one of them spent several minutes looking forwards with her eyes angled towards her neighbour's screen, transfixed. It appeared to me that one was likely to advocate all that promotes well-being whilst the one with little round glasses probably leant towards more aggressive action for her cause. It's the little round glasses. They're a giveaway.

The train tore through the countryside. Tearing along in France is one thing. They have the space to plan the track appropriately. But this train seemed determined to maintain a similar speed in Kent where the challenges of building a high speed line are surely greater. You almost felt like the wheels on one side of the train left the tracks when you were cornering.

And so, after a bit of darkness, we suddenly went pop, and were in France. Large and quite flat land followed. If there was a rise in terrain, it was crowned with wind turbines. Otherwise, the land immediately assumed the usual French vibe of a laid back pace of life which would have been considered horizontal in Finchley.

And so the housing increased. And the factories and graffiti and forgotten bits of life's infrastructure that you see from the tracks, until we rolled into Gare du Nord.

And now to purchase metro tickets. It's a while since we've done this and by all accounts it's still one of the greatest puzzles to confront man. However, there was a plethora of staff with "Ici pour vous" written on their backs and one of them helped us organise cards with nine journeys each on them. We were destined fot the enchantingly named, Edgar Quintet. The route we chose necessitated a change. At this point, we needed to re scan our cards on the contactless machine. Nothing. Just a red cross and unyielding gates. We stood there flummoxed for a while then a member of the public held a gate open for us. But we were unsettled by this cavalier method of subterranean travel and sought advice from a person in a booth at the end of the journey. She told me to present my card. "It didn't work at the station where you changed" she said. We told her that we knew that and wondered if our cards had ceased to function. "You have eight journeys left" was her only response. Take it easy man, you're in France now...

Our hotel was in a prime location. It is called Le M Hotel but I'm still non the wiser as to what the M stands for. The receptionist was friendly. He told us, in a friendly sort of way, that the hotel either had heating or air con. It is 30° outside but currently, the hotel was enjoying heating mode. Switching at this point in the calendar was not an option. "What if it's cold again in a few days time?" This bothered me. When we arrived at our room which faces full into the sun, it continued to bother me. Never mind, we told ourselves, it will be cool this evening...

We went out and looked at Paris. We were immediately immersed in cafés, restaurants and bars as well as theatres. The whole thing went to our heads and we found ourselves sitting at a table on the pavement drinking wine.

It doesn't matter how many times we go to France, we always sit at a table and then wonder if perhaps this is the very first café in France where you have to order at the bar. This is because the French are so laid back that you sit there for what seems like an age before hearing "Vous avez choisis?"

I am learning to embrace the joy of just sitting somewhere nice with the prospect of being offered a drink as well at some point in the future.

We walked into an impossibly hot bedroom for our first night. After laying there for a few minutes, we wondered if we'd survive the night. In the end, I got dressed again and went to the reception to ask if they had a fan we could use. He informed me that they had just handed out the last one! He must have seen my face fall half a mile because he then added that he would do his best to find another one. To his credit, ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and he handed me a pretty good fan. I put it on a chair at the bottom of the bed and set it on max in 'waft mode". We lay there on the bed (under the duvet would have been unthinkable) and waited our turn for the next waft.

And so, we eventually wafted off to sleep.