Lost en France

  On Sunday we tried, unsuccessfully, to find the workshop of the bicycle repairman that had a stall on the market the previous year. He'd told us he was opening a shop but we failed to find it  – perhaps it didn’t survive the pandemic; perhaps we simply were looking in the wrong place. We more groceries (we can only buy a few provisions each visit due to transport being limited to the push bikes) and ordered a full size fridge-freezer. Sally reckoned it was a good price and we’ve been managing with a small fridge for long enough – especially as we’ll be visiting for longer periods now (hopefully). Delivery was only €10 so we arranged for it to be delivered the next day. In the evening we looked for hotels in Paris and, having booked three-nights there, changed our return train ticket; a surprisingly simple process. Up at a more reasonable time (07:45) on Monday – thanks to setting the alarm. We needed to be sure to be up in time for the fridge-freezer delivery (scheduled for s

  As well as having been double-vaccinated at least two weeks ago, France also required us to have had a negative Covid test. Prices vary significantly but the cheapest we found was Collinson at East Midlands Airport. There were closer test centres at 2-3 times the price, but they weren’t exactly local either – and the drive to EMA was a nice one. The test centre was as well organised and efficient as the vaccination centre had been. We arrived very early but were allowed to go straight in. 15-minutes later we were out – and the results (both negative thankfully) were emailed to us before we’d got home. The taxi and the train changes were trouble free until Watford Junction where our luck ran out. The shuttle-train to St Albans (our stop-over for the night) pulled in nice and early and we boarded. Then the conductor announced the train was cancelled due to the driver having exceeded his legal working hours. Luckily Tom offered to pick us up and so we ended up at his and Natasha’s e