And we're done! Never again, crazy people, never again! I now return to the regular schedule, once tomorrow's interview has been dealt with. Now to hit presentation practice again!
The music rolls, and in the misty rain of a dank early morning, you emerge from the miserable hostel and head for the train station in hopefully inconspicuous clothing. The obstacles remain obdurate: A leg from Marseille to Paris (dodging the Sureté and secret train police), crossing Paris uncaught (it's the croissant-cams you need to watch out for), and then the leg from Paris to London through the sensor-rich Channel Tunnel, which can only be defeated with the judicious use of bottles of water, lemons, a large number of throat lozenges, and a high quality photograph of anyone called Frank.
Freedom! Freedom from the continent of incomprehensibly bad breakfast habits! Freedom from an unfairly judged Marseille, and the insurmountable piles of rubbish and cigarette ends! Freedome from all the smelly smoke itself! Freedom! Apart from Chateau d'If and, partly, Frioul the Marseille portion of this trip did not go well. A jellyfish siege and sheer apathy can do that to a trip, as well as an overridingly bad first impression! At this point, a basin with a plug is the highest of heavens, and a tap that doesn't shoot directly into the hole is beyond imagining. It's possible that lack of sleep has sent me just a little loopy. Meep meep!
The Sun rises and the escape continues. The lady in the seat next to me has tried to move twice so I can only assume I look highly suspicious or reek of something terrible. Has the camouflage not worked? Not even the parrot on the shoulder?
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Two reluctant travelling companions later, the first one vanishing permanently some hours later and the second within a minute of boarding the Eurostar, and following a near disaster, the coach trip to South Wales is finally here. Oh, that near disaster almost ruined it all, but the escape is done! Time to put the onion strings in a bin and relax into the this last tiny four road journey. Oh, that near disaster!
Imagine, if you will, the horror of a crippling electrical malfunction right at the outset of your journey and with two city-crossing connections still to make. Imagine the stress as your TGV defies the perceived excellent of the French train system by stumbling along at a halting snail's pace. Actually, please don't imagine the stress if you have an excusing doctor's note, imagine the Magic Roundabout instead. The minutes of your Paris overlap fall away until the Eurostar seems impossible, but you rush anyway from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord and are stunned that they are far less strict on checking in times than you thought they would be. Still, you rush through security and double passport control, and finally board, always a few moments away from disaster. And then your seat mate ditches you immediately. Can one never win?!
It all seems so distant now, now that a Marks and Spencers picnic banquet has been purchased and feasted upon, and the Orcs Nest visited to grab copies of 'King of Tokyo' and 'Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on a Cursed Island'. It's lovely to see rain again, and even the Cardiff roadworks and diversions seem welcoming. It's grey, murky, and thoroughly wet.
Perfect.
O.
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