Back home

After much discussion we decided to come back to Cravant. Apart from the obvious, we had a good time and seen and eaten some fab things. The deciding factor was that various British papers in my wallet which was stolen, cannot be replaced by UK authorities, which means that I've got to engage with the French system in all sorts of unexpected ways. Given what we have coming up over the next few weeks, we decided it was better to come home and get various things underway on Monday. So it was by by Paris for this year, as of this morning. A shame, but things need to get done. The last sting in the tail were our train tickets. We'd gone in to the station Austerlitz to find out if we could get them changed. (It was from this station that we would have returned this coming Monday.) Yes we could change them, with the option to travel on the same time train (as Monday) yesterday or today. It was our choice when. Fine. The tickets were changed. We're halfway from Paris to Tours when the ticket inspector comes and says we have to pay more money. What the person at the desk at Austerlitz failed to tell us is that there were surcharges for changing our ticket, which didn't appear when she printed our new tickets out. They had the same price on. We explained this to the ticket inspector, but he was adamant that he had to apply the law. At this point I suddenly discovered that I was as capable of being as fluidly feisty in French as I can be in English - those who know me well, know what this means! Not that it was going to or did have any effect. But it made me feel better and ensured that he had to thoroughly explain why.

Anyway we had a great visit to some great places in Paris. We have already said to each other that we want to go back next year. Paris remains one of our all time favourite cities and no way are we going to be put off going again, even again again. What will have changed next time is that we'll be better prepared for conditions and with our London savvy heads well and truly screwed on.