Dominating this weeks Anglo-French news was of course the Channel Tunnel fire. Given this is our preferred mode of crossing the channel when we travel to France, I listened to the reports on the radio with a keen ear. On Radio 5 (because I’ve not quite given up on life enough to listen to Radio 4 yet) I heard a Kent Firefigher describe the horrific conditions in the tunnel and how English and French firefighters had joined forces to tackle the blaze. He said that his men had been having French lessons in case of this type of event.
Flicking over to Radio 4 (because I’m 38 in two weeks and I’ll be giving up on life soon) I heard a French firefighter describing his version of events and he said that the French firefighters had been having English lessons in case of just such an event. No wonder it took 16 hours to put out the fire! With one set of firefighters talking cod French and the other talking cod English I’m surprised the fire is even out yet.
We’re flying over on the 28th so we won’t be too worried about passenger services resuming but we’re driving over at Christmas so hopefully everything will be back to normal again. The French firefighter seemed to take great delight in proclaiming the UK an “Island once again”. I wonder if he started the fire.
We’re planning a soiree at New Year and we already have a houseful planned. As we went to France last New Year we know now to stock up on festive reserves as the extent to which the country closes down at that time of year almost took us by surprise. By 4 O’clock in the morning on New Years day we were down to our last three bottles of Champagne and last eight bottles of Cider, sparking simultaneous panic drinking (by me) and emergency rationing (by Mel) . I’ll be taking measures to ensure that doesn’t happen again this year including maintaining a secret stash of Cider. We don’t come back until the 3rd so I’m planning to stretch the boundaries of my fairly limited drinking abilities.
We also worked out that we could celebrate New Year twice, once at 12 O’Clock French time and again at 12 O’Clock English time though I think you’ll find it isn’t New Year until Jules Holland and his hootenanny says it is. We’ll have children with us this year so perhaps it will be a bit more sensible than last though as I have the self-restraint of a Chav that’s won the lottery so we’ll see.
If any our friends in France would like to attend said Soiree, your more than welcome. Entrance fee is four bottles of cheap cider and once bottle of pink fizz for Mel. Music will be in abundance though you will be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped into a late 80’s/early 90’s timewarp. Food will be served, the choice being dictated by whatever is left in CarreFour by the time we get there.
We have moved our flights from the beginning of September to the end of the month and our friends have moved them to Christmas, you wont be at all surprised to hear that Ryanair charged us an extra £300 for the privilege. I don’t know why I still get annoyed about such things, they are truly unbelievable.
It could be worse I suppose. We could have booked with XL which despite being the third largest holiday company in the UK, I’d never heard of until they went belly up this week. 80,000 people stranded abroad and probably the same number again whose holidays are in tatters. It makes me feel glad that because we own our place in France, we feel unable to holiday anywhere else at the moment. At least we can get there one way or another.
We haven’t booked our hire car yet for our break at the end of September and I’m wondering whether to chance our little cheeky scam once more. We usually book the cheapest, worst car in the full knowledge that they don’t have them at Limoges airport meaning that we usually get something half decent. One of these days though I can see us being handed the keys to a Fiat 125 or something equally heinous.
I should be able to blog while I’m there as we have had Broadband installed though judging by the sporadic postings from Helen our service might well be intermittent.
I’m hoping to get at least a days fishing in when we go in a few weeks time though still no sign of a French plumber so I may be too busy chopping wood. Weather reports suggest that all is well in France so its bound to turn when we arrive. If it is miserable then hopefully it will be too bad for me to embarrass myself at Golf again as I did last time I was over. My calf muscles have only just recovered from the mountainous course that Kevin and Matt dragged me round though my ego is still bruised from coming last, which given the competition was no mean feat.