She stood there laughing. Ha ha ha ha.
******
Many people, upon reading the introductory blog to this two-parter, questioned why I was taking a coach to Paris, when a multitude of options were available. Believe me, I asked myself that very same question as we sat in a car-park in Swindon at 8am. The practical answer is that you'd have to be mad to try and get round Paris on the metro with my grandparents, the world's most panicky people.
The idealist answer is that coach trips are always entertaining, aren't they? Entertaining, much in the way that Shameless is entertaining. We laugh cos it's not us.
Well, this time it was me.
Aside from a handful of 40-50 year olds, everyone on this trip was retired. Many of the passengers had been on a long voyage like this one before, seasoned travellers. Sadly for us, the 'long voyage' was seemingly a boat trip to the Underworld with Charon the ferryman, only to discover they didn't have the right fare, so he'd sent them to Paris instead.
Dover, and we met up with our coach drivers. One, named Chris, possessed an air of Scouse joviality masking the fact that he resented each and every one of us. The other, Mike, an old campaigner. I tried to place his accent, but the nearest I could get was 'miserable'.
'Hi, I'm Chris. On your right, that's My Ship'. He pointed to a ferry, the logo 'My Ship' plastered on the side. No-one dared laugh.
'It's mine actually', piped up an old man. A joke? On holiday of all places? He wouldn't last long.
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free.
*******
The first day, we had a coach tour round Paris. A red-haired eccentric tour guide got on the bus, baffled by the traffic of a Friday morning. In Paris? Quelle Surprise!
We didn't stop at the Eiffel Tower. Nor the Champs Élysées. Too mainstream, apparently.
After we'd paused for our tour guide, Maxine, to pick up some goat's cheese that she'd ordered, she invited us off the bus to examine a monument. To this day, I'm still not sure what it was, and I'm not entirely convinced Maxine knew either. She seemed to be conducting the 'Paris without the sights' sight-seeing tour.
Not to worry though. She'd spotted my youthful looks, and I was 'coming back again', apparently.
'You', she turned and pointed at an elderly woman, 'time will tell'.
'RIGHT, ALORS', she yelled, 'do you want to go and see a beautiful sixteenth-century church?'
'NO!' came the shout from a septuagenarian. This was democracy at its finest, and the coach rumbled on.
I watched and went out of my mind.
******
At the restaurant, a group meal.
'...365 marks, one for each day of the year, but don't ask me to count them!'
Facts? Here on the tour? Don't make me spit out my escargots.
I made the fatal mistake of turning round. He misinterpreted my glance for an invitation to chat.
'I used to be a tour guide you see, round Paris'.
'I see. Were you just discussing the Obelisk?'
'The one given by Ramses III as a gift to the French back in 1829? Yes I was'.
 |
| Versailles- all the same, really. |
So before they come to break down the door.
******
The second full day, and seemingly nobody had been voted off the coach yet, but we were a couple light all the same. This being a coach full of old people, the 'return to the coach time' came fifteen minutes earlier than it should have been. A naive pair, probably busy enjoying their holiday, made the mistake of turning up at the coach a l'heure.
They were left behind.
Unsure if I was part of a Leger coach tour or a remaking of The Hunger Games, we continued to Monet's Garden and the Palace of Versailles.
'I'm not sure I'd fancy looking after a garden like that'.
'It's not that interesting when it's all the same, is it?'
'Doesn't do a lot for me'.
'...365 marks, one for each day of the year, but don't ask me to count them'.
Forgive me Delilah I just couldn't take any more.
******
Home-time arrived, and at 8:45, we stood in the car-park, ready for our 9:00 departure, naturally.
Only the Scouse driver was around, and his mask of joviality was slipping.
'Well how do I know where you are if you don't know where you are?'
 |
| Not ours. Sadly. |
'You're where? Well what can you see?'
*Silence*
'The Arc de Triomphe? Jesus Christ...'
Overnight, our wheel had caught fire, and the One with the Unplaceable Accent had taken it to a garage in Paris. And had got lost.
Three hours I was stuck in that lobby, waiting for him to turn up. Three hours. Three hours of the elderly whingeing, but secretly loving every second of it. This was the highlight of the holiday for them. The hen-coop was bustling with the knowledge that the Scouse fox and the Unplaceable fox had to come back to the scene of the crime.
And they were going to badly review them to within an inch of their careers.
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more.
******
We got home, eventually. The elderly women smiled at me as they got off the coach. Bless, the ill kid's come on holiday with his mum cos he can't look after himself. I couldn't be bothered to argue, explain that I was doing a degree and didn't actually know it was a coach trip until after I'd asked to come. By this point I was a vegetable, desensitised.
******
DISCLAIMER: I thoroughly enjoyed the city of Paris, and it ranks alongside Rome, London and Barnsley as one of my favourite places to spend a couple of days.
Just don't ask me to go by coach again.
