This post is just to catch you up on what has been happening since the end of my cruise along the Seine river. You will then understand why I have not written anything for a few days. As I write this, I am on a ship bound for Gibraltar and various ports in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. It is the same ship that took me north to St Petersburg, etc. I am even in the same cabin - unfortunately - right at the front of the ship. Let us not go there again . . . My cabin attendant and I had a good giggle when she saw me back again. She said she could not believe it when she saw my name on her list.
On my last night of the river cruise, I came down with a very nasty bout of food poisoning, which went on for half the night. So I was feeling very unwell when trying to finish my packing and to be out of my cabin before 9 am ready for the taxi that was to take me to my hotel in Paris. Unfortunately I am very prone to that condition because of a medication I take for gastric reflux.
And so now here are tales of immense kindness and thoughtfulness, as well as the lack of it, of disappointments, and of a little drama that added spice to everything (as though I needed it).
Again, people have seen me struggling with all my luggage - lifting it up on X-ray machines, lifting it down again, lifting it up onto trains, lifting it down again - and have just come over and offered to help. These have mostly been men, but also a couple of women. The most memorable example of that was when I boarded the Eurostar in Paris and then alighted in London. In Paris the loveliest young French man lifted my case up onto the luggage rack at the end of the carriage, and then just as he went to take it off the train for me in London, another kind young man in front of him did that. But he then caught up with me and pushed my suitcase and bag along the long platform to the lift for me, as the surface was very rough and bumpy and the trolley wheels kept getting stuck. We had a great chat about why each of us was going to London as we hiked along, me with my heavy backpack and handbag and he with his luggage and the rest of mine.
Kindness also came from two of my lovely English fellow passengers on the river ship, who on hearing I had been ill overnight have emailed me a couple of times to make sure I was alright. Some good friends from home very kindly did the same.
I was disappointed that the river ship people did not want to know anything about me being ill, apart from asking how I was (without really wanting to know the answer). The fact that their food was the probable cause, though apparently no-one else became ill, was not something they wanted to contemplate. The sooner they could wash their hands of me, the better.
When I arrived at my hotel, which turned out to be in the middle of the university district, it was about 10 am. My room was not ready, of course, so as I was in no fit state to do anything else, I had to sit around in the lobby area for some hours. In that time the concierge assistant brought me a glass of water but it tasted so dreadful I could not drink it. About midday, what was clearly a senior female staff member saw me as she was leaving and came up and asked how I was and asked the concierge to get me a cup of tea and a rug as I was clearly cold (as a result of their air conditioning). Then she left. Did he? No - he told me to move to another part of the lobby that was out of the way. He said it would be warmer, but it was not, so I moved back to the more comfortable sofa, no doubt to his displeasure. I never did get a cup of tea either, so when I eventually entered my room just before 3 pm I was very dehydrated. I was not at all well that night. The next day the same man sent me in the completely opposite direction to the nearest post office, so by the time I found it after walking for over an hour, I was exhausted. His lack of kindness and care, unnoticed by other staff, reflected very poorly on the hotel, as far as I am concerned.
I had been booked for an all-day small group tour to Versailles and Monet’s house and garden the day after I left the ship, but of course when I arrived at the hotel I got the receptionist to cancel it. I knew I would not be well enough to manage it. Luckily it turned out I had seen Monet’s house and garden whilst on the river cruise, so at least that dream was fulfilled.
Likewise I was not well enough to go to anywhere in Paris either, as everything I would have liked to see was quite some distance away from the hotel, and I was not up to standing in crowds in any case. All I could do was walk around the few streets very close to the hotel - to the post office and to a couple of small nearby cafes. I did see the Eiffel tower briefly when I was driven past it. Anyhow, I will talk about my impressions of Paris in my next post. I did explore a little on foot on the morning before the river cruise.
Now I must tell you about the drama of getting to this ship, which really happened because I was under par. Normally I would have double-checked my computer records the night before for the reference number etc, for collecting the train tickets. But I was so tired I did not, and instead relied on the hasty note I had written on my master itinerary sheets when I received an email months ago about this journey. As I had gone to Waterloo Station to catch the train the previous time I travelled to the ship, I told my taxi driver to take me there. Thankfully I was leaving early, as usual, in case anything was a problem. Anyhow - shock, horror - the entire station was closed down! The driver’s jaw dropped, and so did mine.
“What will I do now?” I asked the driver. “I might have to get you to drive me to Southhampton. Could you do that?” He stopped where he could and looked up his GPS and said “But lady, that could cost you about 300 pounds. Is there any other station you can go to?” I said I knew nothing about the train system except that Wimbledon was on the same line, if the trains on that line were still running. So he started to drive towards the freeway and then I remembered that the change I thought I had to do was to go back to Victoria Station, not Waterloo Station, when I returned from the ship. I could not remember why. He said that as luck would have it, that station was just five minutes further along the street on which we were driving. “I will drive there and run in and ask them for you if they have any trains going to Southampton this morning.” Which he did. and they did, so I thanked him profusely and gave this delightful, kindly, salt-of-the-earth London taxi driver a big tip. He said “I could have done with the bigger fare, lady, but I could not do that to such a nice lady. But this is a story I will tell my family when I get home.” (We had already chatted a lot about London and Australia on our journey.)
I ran into the station, bought a one-way ticket to Southampton (which cost 40 pounds!) and 20 minutes later I was off to the ship. Last night I did the research I should have done the night before, and lo and behold, I had already paid for a return ticket to Southampton from Victoria Station months ago, including the forward journey on the very same train I caught. I just had to go to the machines to collect it . . . What can I say?
My conclusion: Kindness makes the world so much a better place. It is everywhere and can be given freely to you when you least expect it. I only hope I can pass on all the kindness I have been shown, and forget those who failed to give it. I also hope I will have my wits about me when next I catch a train! . . .
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