French trippers

To try and celebrate/forget the fact that I am another year older we caught a Euro star from Kings Cross to Lille.

Closer than Findhorn C!

Done Paris a few times, most people shocked that we should reject a return visit for a provincial town in the Nord, but we thought that the train goes there, it must be OK.

I don't like going underground and even worse under the Channel [very dark out there] but it is quite quick and I had my kindle.

I had downloaded the new Connelly, PD James and Lee Child. It can be deduced that I didn't sleep well on French pillows as I came home 4 days later having read them all. Wasn't "thrilled" by any of them but they did pass the time.

The hotel had been built in the seventeenth century as a convent for the Minimes order, quite a rigorous group who may be somewhat surprised by the luxury of their accommodation now the cloisters have been covered with a glass roof and a piano bar and restaurant inserted.

We took the Metro to Le Palais Des Beaux Arts, and were amused by the cocktail lights twinkling in the ceilings but not so much by the huge Broken Glass chandeliers, very lumpy shapes.

I did have my birthday money burning a hole in my pochette, but French shops are Very Expensive. I took one euro as one pound which isn't quite right [specially in these Crunch times] but served for me, as I am in-numerate. Many of the shops were the same as in London, if more sparkly clean, but the prices were often twice as much.

So I returned home mostly still clutching.

Bought the new J Grisham at Liverpool St, cheaper in hardback than Kindle!

The trains from Liverpool St station had been in total disarray all day, but had largely been sorted so we arrived home only 10 mins late.