Today’s our second day here in Perth. The jet lag monster has us in its grasp. We were both wide awake at 5 this morning, Ali having only just got into bed, and me having slept for a couple of hours. I read all the magazines Pam had kindly left for us – Australian Vogue full of very improbable fashions highly unsuitable, however much adapted, for my fat mid-fifties. There was this month’s copy of Bien-Dire, a magazine giving French news and commentary, but with handy translations of idioms or less common words. I found myself having a lesson in my home tongue whilst lying in a bed the maximum number of miles distant. Excellent. There was one other magazine that I couldn’t force myself to read thanks to the promise of an article on the magic of peas and beans invitingly placed on the front cover.
Our journey here was perfect. Erzsi turned up in her car, the one that’s pristine on one side and scraped senseless on the other thanks to a kind insurance company and a too-small garage, to take us to Montpellier railway station. There was a lizard etched on the window of the restaurant. Ali’s sister Trisha has a lizard tattoo. It seemed fitting that there would be lizards at the beginning and end of this journey.
Then onto the fantastic TGV that sped us up through France to Lille. Entertained most of the way by a young boy with colossal eyes and a gappy grin, who, about ten minutes from the Disneyland stop, looked at his naked wrist and declared that they were going to be late. We swapped trains at Lille, hauling our two cases and the heavy box containing the pottery Trisha had bought while in Roujan – before she knew it would cost more to ship than it was worth. Do you know? There are only four baggage trolleys in the whole of Lille station. A fifteen minute schlep had me one bagged though and we scuttled off laden but happy. I found a copy of La Reine d’l’Idaho in the bookshop which appears to be the first book I shall ever manage to read in French. After four years of living in Roujan I have yet to accomplish that, so I’ll be delighted if this absence lets me do it. I can actually understand it – all of it. Hooray.
The Eurostar train whisked us into Waterloo where we were met in the chilly gloom by our great-mate-Kate who, with little constructive help from the sat-nav woman in the car, got us to Heathrow through all the rush-hour traffic. A reasonably quick check-in was followed by an interminable crawl though the ‘fast-track’ security clearance. They were busy hoiking all the forbidden items from people’s hand luggage. It was ranged threateningly on a table as we filed past – good job it wasn’t lethal – and included such items as two cans of evaporated milk. Now a) with what was it going to be opened? and b) why would anyone need it on a flight?
After a hasty stop in the jam-packed club lounge for a glass of wine – lamentably no French red – what has French wine marketing come to to allow this to happen? – and on to our whopping 777. Now call me old fashioned, but I thought travelling on planes at all was something exotic not many years ago, and travelling business class only for the jolly well off. Well, I can tell you that there must be gazillions of jolly well off people because both business and first class were bursting at the seams. Our bit looked like a hospital plane with an entire ward of beds with televisions to occupy the sick and wounded. But those beds are a masterpiece of engineering. Each person has an individual pod which keeps everyone as discreetly separate as possible in about a square metre and a half. It’s odd, this travelling long distance. I guess it suits people who can sleep for hours on end. I get bored stiff after waking and want the day to begin. It was a bit frustrating to know it was daylight and clear outside. Had the shutters not been down I could have looked out for the Mouths of the Irrawaddy again. Anyway, after a few hours I realised we would only have 45 minutes in Singapore before the next flight took off. After landing we just ran to the next check-in and arrived just as they we beginning to load people on. Amazingly they managed to get our luggage off the previous flight and on to the next one in that time too. And the next plane was a corker. Quantas have fantastic business class seats. Like massively high tech prams and TVs with a colossal choice. I watched a touching French film – Joyeux Noel about the one night truce called between Scots, Germans and French soldiers on Christmas Eve 1914, and then another slightly odd Australian film – 10 Canoes. Not sure what I think about that one.
We arrived in Perth at 1am, tired and relieved to have arrived, but facing the most colossal queue for passport control. Jeez, they’re picky. And the bloke behind us sniffed for the whole hour while we waited, inching along and standing the entire time. My mum couldn’t have done it.
It was fantastic to see Trisha & Tam waiting for us – back to their fab home for a glass or three of wine then finally into bed after about 40 hours of travelling.
It's 25 November & still jolly warm here in Roujan, France. Yesterday we finished mosaiicing the table up the garden. It was made by the lovely Teddy from LMV for Ali's 50th birthday in June. Friends who came to the week-long party started a mosaic of a seahorse on the top, but festivities took over and it couldn't be finished. But, finally we've done it and Ali's just off up the garden to grout it in what looks like an impending thunderstorm. Here it is ungrouted.
