September

Apologies

Crap internet

But here goes

Photos to follow

So, it’s September.

 This reminds me of a time in the territorials where they woke us up at 0200 on a Saturday morning, double timed us down to the local beach and made us play rugby under the lights of jeeps lined up along the side-line. “What day is it? It’s Saturday. On Saturday we play rugby. Kick off”. Never forgave the bastards for that one!

So, it’s September. What do we do in September?? John just has to get out of NZ!! This must be the fourth year in a row that John is out of NZ for September.

After his “work” with the NZ Women’s Cricket team in Bangalore in June/July, Kris decided that it was her turn for a break, especially as Emma, our darling daughter, was backpacking her way across Europe prior to starting University in Exeter. And who said that my time in India was a holiday?? OK, we did stay in a five + star hotel, yes, I was paid to be a side line supporter, but there were times when clinical skills were called upon and I was on call 24/7. Holiday??? Rubbish. Perhaps it was me that needed the break.

So, very late in the piece, (late July to be exact) the decision was made to have a European sojourn to try and meet up with Emma and to revisit our beloved France.

First problem was locums.  Finding cover at such short notice was bloody difficult. Kris was the first to come up with the goods, finding a suitable candidate to cover her afternoons. John’s locum proved harder to find but eventually, after some considerable negotiation, John managed to get a doc who could fog a mirror and had an APC. The further complication was that John had handed his notice in at ProCare after 15 years with his leaving date coinciding with every other bugger in the clinical directorate heading overseas. In addition, Melissa, John’s 19 year practice manager also advised that she was leaving the practice in early September. Timing couldn’t be better.

Anyway, we needed a holiday regardless even in this was just to spend our accumulated funds to keep the dollars away from our loin fruit.

Much trolling of the interwebby thing and we finally found a lovely place to stay in the St Emilion area. The owner seemed nice and the reviews on TripAdvisor were great. It did appear to be a little way out of any township and note had been made that there was no washing machine, but after a couple of futile attempts at transferring the dollars, eventually our booking was confirmed. Job 1; Done

Job 2: Air tickets. We had been watching the Air NZ flights and had in our minds to repeat the flights we did last year. Auck- Shanghai on Air NZ then Air France Shanghai to Paris where last year we were upgraded to Business!).  Return was to be Singapore Air London to Singapore then Air NZ Singapore to Auckland. The flights were still there and as we are growing old and wanted to spend more of our loin fruit’s inheritance, we opted for Premium economy on all flights. Due to the travel we had made with Air NZ last year we had the ability to upgrade on one sector for one class so we applied for a Business upgrade on the first flight Auck – Shanghai. This was to be on the new Dreamliner 787 so John was very keen to see what this plane was like be it in economy or business.

Job done:

Job 3: Equally as easy. Through the Air NZ site we booked a “Peugeot 308 or like” vehicle from Avis Done!

Job 4: Hotel for one night at Paris Charles de Gaul airport. Our previous Citizen M hotel was only offering $800 per night so we opted for Nomad, similar style to Citizen M but not as flash and much cheaper. Job Done

Job 5: A hotel for us in Paris. We are citizens of habit so it was back to the Sofitel in the student area. Job done

Job 6: So we needed a hotel in London. Now this seemed not as easy. If you didn’t want to pay thousands it appeared that all you could get was either a toilet or a bed but never both for the price we wanted to pay. Some of the TripAdvisor reviews were hilarious but disheartening. Eventually, seemingly adequate hotel found and booked; Job done

Job 7: Contact our friends in Torquay to remind them we were coming and to let them know we had booked our train from Paris (oops that was job 7: Done that as well!). “Great” says Michael. ‘Love to have you. We may not be at home for that Saturday as we are going to Ireland v Canada at Cardiff for the Rugby World Cup”. Now this is from a man who has never seen a rugby ball before in his life!! But now he has tickets to two Ireland games. You can take the man out of Limerick but you cannot take the piss out of anyone with Irish decent!” Never mind, we are sure it will all work out.

So, all seems to be set. All jobs done. All bills paid. Everything tidy. Then back in Auckland the heavens open up and the swimming pool at home fills up with mud. Merde!! It will take a week to get back to normal. The pool had only been clear for 24 hours since the last deluge! So we called on the help of young Chris Hedges with a detailed plan of how to work the beast and off to the airport for us

Chatting away in the queue at Air NZ with Kris getting one up on a smart arse in front of us when the woman behind the desk says that we will not see the chap on the plane as we are up the front!! Yippee, our upgrade has come through. Ah, the bliss of a lie flat bed. The whole trip disappeared under snores and pleasant dreams. How can we ever suffer to go back to baggage ever again? But then again, without the upgrade, the cost is just too steep for us poor GPs. A few hours in Shanghai and then off on Air France. Last time we were upgraded to Business for some strange reason, but not this time. Air France premium economy is only better than economy due to the wider seats. The food paled into insignificance compared to the repast had in Business the previous year. Yuk!! Still managed to catch a little more sleep and a couple of movies and into Paris we go.

Ah. Paris! OK, so we didn’t actually stray far from CDG with our hotel being a 10 minute drive away. Funky wee hotel with everything made out of plywood, with a projector for a TV, the same multi coloured shower as in Citizen M and much of the same set up.

Out for a walk to break up the DVTs after 26 hours in the air and dinner in a wee Auberge we found. It was like stepping back into the 60s with cigarette smoke stained walls and décor from Faulty Towers. The food was bearable and so to home to bed to sleep (even if we only had one pillow!!).

Our trip has started!