The Traveller's Rest

This was the name of a pub which I used to pass when I was a child. Very pretty, shaded by venerable trees, set on a village green with benches outside where old codgers could criticise the cricket while sinking the contents of tankards.

I found myself thinking of that on my return to France from warmer climes....kind friends came to meet me after the long journey at no little inconvenience to themselves and took me in while I went through the last throes of the sale of the small house before I finally set off for home.

The last stage of the journey had been a renewed 'welcome to France' experience...the local train had been withdrawn due to strike (in)action and had been replaced by a bus whose delightful driver had never driven the route before. He had given his passengers a wonderful scenic run looking for obscure country stations, but all  I wanted was to be able to stop travelling and make major inroads on a pot of tea.

Fraught and bone weary, the sight of my friends emerging, smiling, from their car was balm to the soul. I could switch off and relax. I was in good hands.
It began with laughter. They had, while waiting, identified a Womble haunting the station and one sight of the lady concerned had me agreeing that we should all be on Wimbledon Common rather than in the heart of France.
There was no litter to be seen either, which I felt confirmed their theory.
It continued with tea, a warm comfortable room and, finally, sleep.

The ravelled sleeve of care knit up, I was able to face the battle over Capital Gains Tax with equanimity - that is to say, I managed to get my own way without blowing a gasket - and could wind up one more complication in life.

I was ready as I would ever be to face the onslaught of paper awaiting my attention in the post box...at least, the bits which had survived the determined attack of the army of snails awakened from hibernation and seeking the three star luxury of the meals on wheels provided by the postlady.

But, knuckling down to it all, my thoughts often stray to my friends and their welcoming house by the river.

They, like us, have decided to downsize.
They have run their hospitality business for many years, with people coming back time after time, but, as with us, health problems are raising their heads and it is time to make changes.
We will all find it difficult to leave the places we have loved so much, but we have all appreciated that it is best to make the move while we have liberty of action rather than wait until we are forced to move by circumstance.

The only thing of which I am sure is that, wherever they move, their home will  always be a haven for the weary traveller, a warm centre of laughter, kindness, good food and comfort.

It will be worth the journey.



photograph by ugardener 2 on Triporati

Transport of delight

I have been in the UK, visiting mother....for the first time since I moved to France, she has not been well enough to visit me, so the mountain went to Mahommet, and, surprisingly, enjoyed the whole trip. I might want to lie down for a few days to recover from it, but I enjoyed it.

Firstly, I didn't have to take a French train. Kind friends took me to the little one horse airport whence Ryanair flies to Stansted, whose cafe seems to attract a lot of local lunchtime custom, and left me to my own devices.

Noting the cost of checked baggage when I booked online, I took only hand luggage, and did not book priority boarding. I was flexible about dates and got a super cheap fare...so far, all positives. At the airport, I was processed without having to queue, the staff were far from draconian about the hand luggage regulations, security was fast and efficient and there were so few people who had booked priority boarding that it would have been a meaningless expense.

The 'plane was on time and I enjoyed the freedom of being able to board at either end of the plane, unlike the regular airlines' practice of making cattle class customers board through the first class and business class section, where I am forced to observe people on expense accounts lolling at their ease with free newspapers, while I struggle through to the lairage at the back. Why, when we have video conferencing, do these people need to travel the world? Why does no one seem to realise that we, customers, citizens, mugs, are paying for their comfort, whether through our taxes or in the price of the products their firms produce? Never mind taking the drinks trolley round....wheel on the portable guillotine and let the cabin crew have some fun for once. It would perk up the flight watching that being trundled down to the first class section. I'd even take up knitting if necessary.

Still, on my short flight the cabin staff were pleasant and efficient, and although they were constantly trying to sell me something it did not bother me as I go deaf in 'planes , nor would it have done if I had retained my hearing as I have also retained the power to decline what I don't want. Ryanair has a bad press, but it was all right by me.

Friends met me at Stansted and took me home for a super evening of good food, many laughs and a chance to investigate the Italian wines they were starting to import.....then on the next day they took me to the station....to get a real train! One which didn't have steps up into the carriage from the platform. One I could board without fear of splitting my tights. Carriages with proper luggage racks so that I could keep an eye on my baggage.

When I was last in the U.K., everything was still British Rail, so the new company names took me aback, but the trains themselves were reassuringly tatty, even if the London terminals had been alarmingly tarted up. When did Liverpool Street stop being a pit of stygian gloom? I could actually see the other passengers as I walked down the platform...most disconcerting. In the good old days of Liverpool Street I think you could have walked about naked and no one would have been able to spot your Lady Godiva apparel, so dark was the station concourse.

The Underground was unchanged...apart from having ticket machines which took all sorts of money and gave change...clanking and rattling through the bowels of London, and, inevitably, on the return journey, when time was of the essence for catching the 'plane, the Bakerloo Line was paralysed by a signal failure at Baker Street. Ah, the nostalgia! Alternative routes on trains already so packed that you needed Japanese station attendants to shove passengers into the ambulant Black Hole of Calcutta within. Trained on the Boy Scouts' jumble sales in the church hall in the days of my youth, I used my elbows to good effect and was borne away triumphant. It has to be like riding a bicycle, the technique for getting into a rush hour Tube train - you never forget.

Buses, both in London and the provinces, that you enter at pavement height....buses that indicate the next stop so that you are not borne on into the wilds, despairingly looking for the first stop after Kensal Rise station...buses with flat fares so that there are no arguments with the driver when you do overshoot your destination.....absolute bliss!

The whole thing, from start to finish was, to quote Flanders and Swann, a transport of delight. And mother wasn't too bad, either.