As Huttonian thought there was no realistic oppurtunity to rant from French France. The eldest daughters PC was not connected to the web and cyber cafes though plenty were not convenient of access so we were saved the incomprehensible francophone key boards.Arrival; at Paris CDG was greeted with a text message from the ED to say that she was snarled in gridlocked traffic and could we make our own way by rail right across the Isle De France from one end of the RER to the other at St Germaine –en-Laye. Psychologically we were not prepared for this daunting exercise in town craft. We had been looking forward to being magicked across town in a warm car,skillfully driven by la fille ainee; instead we had to navigate ourselves through alien territory, with only the Lonely Planet and a partial map of the network which I had fortuitously downloaded from the internet that very morning. The map on loan from the Hutton Think Tank-foreign parts section was not particularily useful with its unflattering(contemporary) references to General de Gaulle and illustrated maps with figures reprersenting flora and fauna and unhelpful comments super imposed such as ‘sic sont froggii’ –a statement of the bleeding obvious but not much use as a navigational tool. Thanks however to helful humans who invariably responded to my questions posed in impeccable French with replies in very poor English we muddled through. It all semed very familiar if for RER you read WAGN –even the passengers were as scruffy as their Anglais counterparts-the elegant and chic Frenchwomen of legend (against whom the HT2 map warned unwary travellers} were not in evidence. Like WAGN the train moved very gently and the station signs were as obscured. And like Wagn the announcements about whether or not you were on the right train were made after the last stop that it was possible to change your mind and get off to make the correct connection. Vive le Sport! It was I should add for Mersians, very different from the 32 Bus. Life in the Borders prepares you for many daunting tasks and potential problems but struggling across Paris by RER is not one of them.
Later on my way back I was killing time at Charles de Gaulle airport. The hand of French Culture lies heavy here. No way to access the BBC website-the only one which would not come up on the web; so no cricket score. Under instructions from the Academie Francaise Even the Easy Jet check in people refuse to let English past their lips for fear of cultural contamination which with a plane load of of Geordies heading home caused some problems! One of the later turned to a mate and said (expletives deleted) 'He.... doesn't....... even....... know if the....... Magpies have...... scored' or active participles to that effect
