I fear this year may be a trying year...

So. I can't remember what I was writing/thinking last time, but...it had something to do with documenting one of my journeys with pics and "live" updates from phone and stuff. And I even managed to take a photo of the 1st stage.


Teh 1st Stop, after 15 minutes of walking....FREE Orange Bus.

But, then it gradually descended into the usual nightmare of "lounges" (Bristol is officially one of the worst airports in the world (me and an old mate I bumped into there agreed!)), running to make connecting vehicles (I travelled by pretty much everything except horseback today: monorail thingie, metro, bus, train, plane, car, foot....NB. No bicycles (filthy things!)).

So I kinda forgot...then it was just:

"Hello Meeting Room full of European types....my name is Guri...I am the Technical dude with regards Device Management...erm...OK, just carry on talking amongst yourselves...er. This is a highly complex diagram of a massive multi-tiered super-redundandt massively parrerelell system shown really small on a badly focused projector!"

Czech Dude: You cannot say PARALLEL

Me: Sorry Ajkilzhuzkij, I did not mean to mispronounce my words.


This is not him; this is al Zakarwi-Hamid-Habibi-Finflusy

OK. Sorry, back on track now. Anyway, that was that day done (Wednesday)....oh, by the way I was staying at Charles de Gaulle Airport (in "the Novotel"....Noisotel more like) throughout. Couldn't sleep that night (bad prawns at lunch?)...next day I was expecting a pretty easy trip back into Paris (Gaytown)...but no.

Teh gods (great book!....fantastic book...click that link & buy & read!), saw fit to punish me with a gruelling 2 hour trip across "the most beautiful city in Europe" and back again. Their words, not mine. Started out OK at 7 am on the RER (main Paris area train)...then it stopped...in the middle of the banlieue (where they keep warm by burning cars)...for half an hour. Bear in mind I reckon it should take max one hour to do this trip. Get to my stop. The Metro link is closed, grab a roll and a coffee...have to get a bus to another metro station to get the line 13...then walk about a mile to the office. That's a 2 hour commute and I have a 3 hour meeting ahead of me.

I got there first though (on the dot of 9), the consultants next ("bad traffic"), and then various foreign techies....30 minutes later, the actual meeting organisers turned up...who were....both parisians!

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say. The french don't know their own traffic system; The more "senior" you are you are deemed "busy" at all times...or what?

So, now I have 1 and a half hours to get back to the airport. I bus it (from Chatillon-Montrouge) back to Porte d-Orleans (which is under massive construction for a new tram system and thus barely navigable for about a square mile), walk for ages through the underground system. Catch the metron to Denfert-Rocherau and transfer to RER (B) to Charles de Gaulle. Which happened to be the slow train; the one that stops every 10 minutes and adds about 30 minutes to the journey...Get to airport...strip (pretty much...it's normal in CDG)...get on plane...seat's good...food's bad. A brilliant family from Cardiff next to me on the plane (maybe more on them another time)....I'm bored of typing now.

Bristol! Yay....Bus.....cancelled....Boo!...Taxi...Yay....Home!!! O.O

That's it!...only baby stuff below...

See, you knew you wanted just scroll down to the baby bit.



Lil went absolutley hysterical as soon as I took her coat off which lasted about 10 minutes until I hit upon the idea of carrying her and waving bright objects in front of her...Genius!...got grumpy towards the end, but then I did play some guitar.



Wow. What a long post, I feel bled dry.

While in Frogsville I've had to book another trip back to Paris next week...catching the last flight out on a friday night!!!! And that's a notorious bugger....sorry ;-)

Keep your ears posted for the cyber-screams!

Goodnight.