Just returned from a trip back to the Big Smoke and am I glad to be back in France. Oooof, so much concrete, noise, millions of people and everywhere you go, consume, consume, consume and then consume some more.
As for good ol’ London Transport – OMG. The entire week I was there the tube service was running at 70% or less, sometimes at least a couple of lines weren’t even working. I enjoyed effortless travel across France only for it all to come to a grinding halt as soon as I hit the UK. I had to venture “up North” whilst I was there so duly limped my way over to Kings X via an intermittent Metropolitan line service. As a result of which, I only had ten minutes to print out my e-tickets and locate the platform, which caused me much angst. Having used Kings X many times in the past – no, nothing to do with my Saloppe Francaise status – I found the big arrival/departure board in the main hall and looked for my train only to find more fresh Hell. QB????? Infuriated and sweating like the proverbial, I duly asked, only to be pointed in the direction of a sign with B on it and an enormous queue behind it. B*****ks. I hate London Transport.
Don’t even get me started on people’s behaviour on it. What has happened to this once beautiful City? There are no standards of socially acceptable behaviour anymore. Not only did I have to contend with a cross section of music from all genres blaring out from all manner of personal??? devices, sounding like something from a Bollywood movie gone wrong; the sucker punch was having to listen to the screech of a nail file across the talons of a woman sitting directly in front of me and then watching in stunned amazement as she wafted the manicured dust into the air straight up my nose!!!! Agggghhhhh……
The final nail in the London Transport coffin was arriving at Stansted at 2.15am that looked more a refugee camp than an international airport, with everything closed including security, bodies on the floor trying to get some kip and the minimal seating that there was, taken by those arriving earlier than me and using it as temporary beds. I had no choice but to join them, like a tramp, on the floor. When I finally got the other side of security at circa 4am I managed to find a row of free seats hidden from public view where I tried to also rest my weary eyes only to be disturbed five minutes later by Paul Young’s “Wherever I Lay My Hat, That’s My Home” blaring out on the tannoy system along with the sound of cleaners with their various vacuum cleaners and bars and coffee shops preparing for another day in the “civilised” World.
So thank God, here I am, back in the “bosom” of my lovely new family – all my boys, including 4paws – and revelling in the sunshine, blue skies and greenery. There really is no place like home and I don’t have to wear a hat to prove it.