Day 5: Farewell France

Don’t ever travel with this woman.

For anyone visiting from Six Word Saturday who feels like they wandered in at the end of the movie: you did – this is the last of my posts on my recent trip to France.

I wrote this in my notebook when I got up on Sunday: Going home day 😦

I woke at five a.m., which was really four a.m. because I was still on UK time.  I washed, dressed, cleaned the bathroom, wrote the following day’s two posts and hung around on Viv’s upstairs landing; it is big enough for a thousand books, three chairs, a couch, a table and one sad Tilly.

We had our usual jammy breakfast and left by nine (eight).  We followed the rising sun toward Beauvais Airport; the sun was in our eyes all the way.  Poor Jock and Viv had to drive home into the setting sun.  You can read about it on Viv’s blog.  The journey took four hours exactly, including a ten minute stop to stretch our legs.  We fed French sparrows and marvelled at their lack of fear.  The Hub oohed and aahhed and took pictures at the rest stop but resolutely ignored the sparrows at the airport who were just as cute, but likely to fly into airplane engines if encouraged to hang around. 

The journey would have been dull if we hadn’t been entertained by Jock’s jokes and amusing stories; all-round good conversation; and a jolly old singalong that started in World War I and went on to cover six national anthems, though we did mumble through the Welsh one.

 

Photo courtesy of Viv

 

We had a picnic in the airport and enjoyed some smashing sandwiches.  All the way there Jock told us how much he was looking forward to his chicken sandwich, couldn’t wait for his chicken sandwich, loved a good chicken sandwich.  Eventually, Viv broke it to him that we were having turkey sandwiches.  He should have known that, because he was the one who made them.

We had a cup of airport brew, which wasn’t half bad, and then said sad goodbyes to our sweet and generous hosts.  I entitled this post ‘Farewell France’ because I may never get back there (though I sincerely hope I do), but Viv will never be out of my life.  She is warm and kind and funny and surprisingly short – she looks much taller on the internet.  She and Jock are lovely, lovely people (underlined in my notebook).

We queued for forty minutes for passport control, chatting to a woman from Liverpool now living in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I didn’t know that was a real place; I thought it was just a choochoo.  I learn something new every day.

Our Ryanair flight was late boarding, but not as late as the Ryanair plane next to us, which had to be refueled and was at least thirty minutes behind schedule.  The Hub wanted a particular seat, taking for the photographs of, so we went in the back way and moved forward.  As we sat, an altercation broke out in the next row in front.  A middle-aged woman yelled at the young man, no more than twenty, trying to put his bag in the overhead locker that he was NOT to do that, he was to put it ELSEWHERE because her CHRISTIAN DIOR COAT was in the locker and she was NOT HAVING IT DAMAGED by some oik who didn’t know the value of a £450 COAT was he LISTENING to her he was NOT to do it she was NOT having it what was WRONG with him, the IDIOT her COAT was too VALUABLE.

The oik had not spoken once.  He looked too frightened.  A flight attendant came and the woman went off on another rant.  The flight attendant explained politely that space was limited and couldn’t be utilised to please one passenger.  The woman complained that there was another coat in the locker.  I piped up, ‘That’s my jacket.  I don’t mind it being a little squashed.’  I am writing to you as a shrivelled-up stump of ash.  The woman grabbed her £450 CHRISTIAN DIOR COAT which looked rather like a thin black jacket and which could have been folded neatly over her knee or on the spare seat beside her, complaining loudly all the time.  Other passengers said later that the woman had poked the flight attendant, but I was too busy wondering what was so great about her coat that she had to make such a fuss, to notice.

The flight attendant called her boss but Christian Dior Woman had subsided by the time she had forced her way through the passengers in the aisle watching the scene – and it was a scene; I’ve never seen a scene before but I knew instinctively this was what a scene looked like.  The Chief Stewardess contacted the pilot; the Hub was convinced Christian Dior Woman would be escorted off the plane because the pilot wouldn’t want to risk trouble amongst the passengers once we were in the air.  However, the Hub reckoned without Ryanair’s boss, who enjoys his position as Number One On Time Carrier, and would not have taken kindly to a delay over and above the twenty minutes we were already behind; especially as the plane next door had not yet taken off, despite being scheduled to leave before us.  The Christian Dior Woman stayed on board; the polite oik’s suitcase was put into another locker; and the flight attendant mouthed apologies to the surrounding passengers.

I bet Christian Dior Woman wishes she hadn’t stayed on board.  The polite oik’s female friend was a typical northern lass: loud-mouthed and opinionated (I write this as a northern lass myself).  Throughout the flight she made loud remarks to and about Christian Dior Woman and her coat and her high but apparently misplaced self-esteem.  I was starting to feel a little sorry for Christian Dior Woman, who had engaged in argument for a while but then told Mouthy Girl she was no longer going to listen to her; but then she looked around at the other passengers – all of whom had remained silent in appreciation of the unexpected entertainment enlivening a routine flight – and told us we were all YOBS, UNEDUCATED AND IGNORANT, she was GLAD to be going back to AUSTRALIA where people KNOW HOW TO BEHAVE and couldn’t STAND  such THUGGISH BEHAVIOUR.  Then she put on her black sunglasses (by this time it was night outside) and went to the back of the plane to put her side of the story to the prodded stewardess.  What I found most interesting about her statement about Australia was that she had a British accent.

The seat belt light went on; Christian Dior Woman didn’t sit down until ordered to; the plane landed on time, despite being so late leaving.  Michael O’Leary must have been waiting to kiss our pilot on the tarmac.  Then we waited twenty minutes for the steps to get off.  Trouble flared again between Mouthy Girl and Christian Dior Woman: something about she should get on the phone to her genie to whisk her off the plane ahead of us louts.  Polite oik who, it transpired, was not so polite after all, or else had been encouraged by his mouthy friend, then told Christian Dior Woman she was a c**t.  There was an audible gasp all around, including my own, and then the plane door opened and people disembarked before it turned really nasty.

It was an unpleasant end to a wonderful five days.  Christian Dior Woman brought a lot of it on herself; she was unnecessarily obnoxious: perhaps she likes attention, even if it is negative; but Manchester Youth was not on its best behaviour either. 

I am blessed with great friends: friend A collected us at the airport so we didn’t have to pay for a taxi, and brought along a monster pot of stew and dumplings for our dinner, and…a baguette!

Boys and dogs were waiting with open arms for their presents.  We greeted the dogs outside because Molly has a tendency to widdle in excitement.  She didn’t let us down: she peed on the path, the carpet, the kitchen floor, my jeans and my jumper.  It might have been worse: it could have been one of the boys.

Joke 240

A boy was having a lot of difficulty in French class.  To encourage him, his teacher said, “You’ll know you’re really beginning to get it when you start dreaming in French.”

The boy ran into class all excited one day, saying, “Teacher, teacher!  I had a dream last night and everyone was talking in French!” 

“Great!” said the teacher; “what were they saying?” 

“I don’t know,” the boy replied; “I couldn’t understand them.”