Off the road

I'm busy paying bills and doing the last odds and ends before I leave for Argelès where we'll be for three weeks prior to going to Ireland for three weeks. I was thinking of all the places I've been this year from my Swiss base.

• Malta
• Andorra (2x)
• France (Argelès, Paris, Toulouse, Carcassonne)
• Spain
• Russia
• Germany (Stuttgart, Köln)
• Italy (Rome, although that wasn't intended)
• Netherlands
• Canada (Montreal)
• US (Upper State NY, Long Island, Cape Cod, Boston)

Trying to get the writing done in between enjoying each place has been a challenge. On the other hand, there isn't an experience I would want to eliminate.

I never expected to fly a flight simulator nor did I expect to spend time on a houseboat in Amsterdam. One of the great things about life is the unexpected fun.

Next year I hope to try and spend more time in my two bases, Argeles and Geneva with less travelling.

Do I hear laughing?

Two Paris signs

Sunday morning there was a long line at my favourite boulangerie near where my friend lives in Paris. Normally, any line and I would decide I didn't need whatever was at the end of the line, but the desire for pain au chocolat was too great. The sign on the door said that Blé (wheat) had gone up 36% in the last three months. However the taste was worth the wait and the higher prices.

At the coffee shop at the Gare de Austerlitz asks people to put their trays away because of the pigeons. As I read it a pigeon landed on one of the tables and removed a crumb or two while I watched.

To Paris by train

The view from the TGV window from Geneva to Paris

The French train system is totally weird. If I buy a ticket Geneva to Paris and take the train Geneva to Belgarde, get off and get on the TGV Geneva/Paris train that left Geneva about 45 minutes after the Geneva to Belgrade train it’s 30 CHF less. And the train Belgarde to Geneva is the same train I would have been on if I’d taken if from Geneva to Belgarde, stayed on until Paris and paid 30 CHF more.

Is that clear? 

So of course, I chose the cheaper option. EXCEPT the Geneva Belgarde train didn’t come and I ended up on the 30 CHF more expensive train in the seat I’d reserved from Belgarde to Paris.

I like the one constant fare in the Swiss system, 50% off with the annual or tri annual abonnement no matter what time or day.

With the French system time of days, time of purchase and probably what sweater I’m wearing all influence the price. 

Once on a TGV to Paris an American woman was furious that the group was in second class when they'd been promised first class. "The view is better in first class," she kept saying.

The view on this ride was beautiful with the snow-covered pines and little villages.
  

Skeletons and typos

I finished the final proofing of my novel Murder in Paris due out in April this morning at 6:38. This has been the ninth proofing by five people. I still found six errors, albeit some small such as " marks before a non quote.

Another was a little worse. One character had two names in the same chapter. How did everyone, including myself, miss that? Or did someone else pick it up and I miss their correction?

I'm in love with the cover, especially the skeleton under the Paris street (no story spoiler of why) but that photo is the work of my talented housemate. The skeleton was one of many found, along with others, under the under-under-floor of the the 13th century church in our little commune.

Archeologists guess it was a seventh-century cemetery. What intrigued me about this skeleton, was that it was huge, probably almost seven-feet tall. That person lived in the days when people were small and basketball players did not exist. Because of the size, I assume it was a man just like the small skeleton with a baby found at the same time was a mother and child. I also wondered how sad the people were who laid that person to rest sometime in the 600s.

When walking around Corsier, I realise that I'm only the latest of centuries of people to enjoy the views of the Alps, Jura and lake. Others lived, laughed, cried and died here long before and if we don't destroy ourselves, long after me. Most probably never worried about typos.