The Great Trek North

Travel incompatible

Last week I did the great trek North from Lectoure to Edinburgh to meet my first ever grandchild, Felix James. These journeys are always preceded by a morning on the internet checking out travel options. Since there are no direct flights during the winter months from SW France to Scotland, planning the journey involves juggling with flight or train connections, and invariably none of them join up. Picture the scene, me and husband on separate laptops, panning for travel gold. Cries of 'Here we are, I've found something, I think this would work' invariably followed by 'Oh no, we'd have to be in Pau at three in the morning' or 'I don't believe it, 600 euros for the two of us, and that's single. They've got to be kidding.' Anyway, this time, for various reasons, I opted for the train and my husband went by car. Unless we're flying, Colin and I are travel incompatible. His idea of driving the length of France and England is to do it in the fastest possible time with minimum stops, apart from one overnight in a budget hotel. I on the other hand like coffee stops and lunch stops and the odd detour from the autoroute to admire the view. As for budget hotels, well to me that's just a contradiction in terms. If you're going to splash out on a hotel, you don't want nasty little words like 'budget' creeping into the equation.
So he dropped me at the station in our longsuffering Renault Scenic. The poor thing suffers from an identity crisis (the car that is, not my husband). It has seats that can be removed to give more space for loading assorted junk in the back. Our car spends so much time without passenger seats, it's now convinced it's a van.

Travel heaven

I knew I'd drawn the travel long straw from the moment the TGV, bound for Lille, glided into the station. I love train travel and the Train Grande Vitesse is a class act, the very Rolls Royce of trains. It makes its entrance like a diva, to a flurry of whistle-tooting anticipation on the platform. Passengers have already taken up their places in the chorus line, taking their cue from the platform plan which indicates the exact position where they should stand according to their carriage number - because the TGV doesn't suffer fools gladly. It keeps to a tight schedule and woe betide any unrehearsed extras still bumbling around on the platform when the train is ready to depart. Its doors spring shut with an elegant hiss and what must be one of the smoothest 250 km an hour rides in the world gets underway. A good book, a breakfast cup of coffee and croissant from the buffet, a comfortable window seat with occasional glimpses of turreted chateaux, acres of twisty vines and wide, slow-moving rivers. I still have a long journey ahead of me but already I've arrived in travel heaven.