Painful days

I travelled back to France today after a five day sojourn in London. It was a sad journey. I couldn't help feeling that I shouldn't have been making the trip at all, that I should have been staying in London to support Debrah, who is not having a great time in her new-ish job. The Apartment here in Carcassonne feels large and empty here on my own and after five days together I am missing Debrah very much.

As always I enjoyed London and then again I didn't - some things just really annoy me about the place nowadays, probably the same things that annoy everyone else that lives there but they are still in their 'that's the way it is' mindset, as I was for many years myself, whilst now they just depress or annoy me. It's nothing major, just obvious stuff like transport and people and mess and noise.

Debrah often complains about the noise in Carcassonne, especially the kids on their mopeds (I totally agree with that) but I think it is just as noisy if not noisier in London. You get used to different sorts of noise, I guess, so one always notices what's new or different.

Don't get me wrong, I love London but just get very irritated by certain aspects of it these days.

On Monday I went down to Sussex to see my Mum and Dad. Mum is recovering from another operation but she was in good spirits and seemed a lot brighter than the last time I saw her - in fact they both did which was great to see. It is my Mum's 80th birthday at the end of the month so I spent some time discussing and planning events for that, taking her down to the local event hire place to look at crockery and cutlery and glasses etc and telling her I was going to do all the cooking for the event and none of this bought in ready prepared nonsense that others in my family were veering towards. It's her 80th and she has been my father's full time carer for 15 years now and she deserves a fabulous birthday.

The hardest part of being in London was that as soon as the initial euphoria of being together again had subsided thoughts immediately went back to the impending, imminent departure date, which means that we didn't really get to enjoy the last couple of days together. I find that really difficult because I want to treasure and value every hour that we do have together, not spend them looking forward to the next separation.

Oh well, it's not done deliberately but is just an outpouring of emotions. Two more months and then I will be back in London for the winter and we will make our plans for next year (the plans are made but they change every week or so depending on the current mood) and one thing is certain, whatever the plans are they will either be both of us together full time in London or both of us together full time in France - no more weeks apart.

To that end a couple of good conversations happened in the last few days that should result in some new opportunities for me in the next few months that will tie in well with finishing off the season here and finding something to do when I return to the big city.

Life no longer stands still - which is very exciting.

Back in the City

It has been an interesting couple of days getting my head around spending more time back in London - not just working out how I am going to run and manage the business in France but also getting used to life back in the capital again.

For the past year I have rarely spent more than a few days at a time here and so didn't really need to get that involved - the purpose of each of those trips was to see Debrah and help her with any everyday issues and admin as necessary.

But now that I know I am going to be here more often I have been looking at things differently - what do I like about London, what am I going to have to tolerate and what will just piss me off? Inevitably it is a mix of all three.

Yesterday, I had arranged to meet an old work colleague for lunch and a very good friend for a drink in the evening.

The first thing that struck me was how much I hated the train and tube journey into the West End. I have done it daily for 25 years and just accepted it as part of life - I tolerated it and was immune to it - it was a necessity. Now that I am used to just walking somewhere or jumping in the car and being there in five or ten minutes without any delays, I found that even standing on the platform waiting for the train a great irritation and the journey itself extremely dull - it all felt like wasted time.

Carl was ten minutes late, which is nothing, but had to leave 35 minutes later because of a 2.00pm meeting. That wasn't lunch. That was barely a catch-up and certainly not worth travelling into Central London for on it's own. I can tell I am going to miss the civilised two hours that everyone takes in France - two hours that actually gives you time to eat and relax and talk if you are meeting someone.

But then the day got better. I miss the big sprawling bookshops like Waterstones and Borders, so it was great to be able to spend an hour browsing - there are bookshops in France of course but all the books are in French - there is also Amazon, who are great, but it's just not the same as the tactile browsing of shelves.

Whilst heading south from Oxford Street, I dropped into Bentley's restaurant, ostensibly to make a reservation for Debrah and me for Saturday lunchtime, but after my non-lunch, the bar looked too inviting and I was a bit hungry. Ten minutes later I was discussing the relative merits of Maldon Rock v Bouzigues oysters and Muscadet v Picpoul de Pinet, sat in the comfortable surroundings of a top London bar, just me and the barman - I felt like a character in an old Hollywood movie. You don't get that level of sophistication outside of big cities and certainly not in Carcassonne and I couldn't have had that conversation either because the French dismiss anything non-French or even non-regional French as complete rubbish. I am very much looking forward to going back tomorrow with Debrah.

Debrah has been working with the National Gallery as a client for a while now and as a result of a corporate membership she has access to tickets for events - so it was that I was able to visit the fantastic Picasso exhibition in the Sainsbury Wing. It was wonderful. I then took a stroll through the rest of the gallery and marvelled at the fantastic collection of masterpieces, each instantly recognisable, that adorn the walls - all free and on the doorstep and taken for granted and ignored by most Londoners - I certainly did for all those years.

As I emerged onto Trafalgar Square, with Nelson's Column soaring up in front of me and Big Ben beyond at the end of Whitehall, I thought about what a fabulous city London is and how much it has to offer. I think my time away helps me to appreciate it so much more. I just need to work out how to make the most of the good and ignore the bad.

Later than expected

It was a strange week. The cancelled flight on Monday threw all our plans out of the window. I had a list of things that I wanted to get done in London and I couldn't do them from France - so it was also frustrating.

I did quite a bit of work on my French accounts which was a good thing and we had two lovely lunches sat in the sunshine in the square and Chris and Patrick came over for supper on Wednesday evening - but actually we were a bit sad that we had missed all the snow in London.

We were a little bit apprehensive this morning that we would suffer the same fate again. There were reports of more overnight snow and the runway at Stansted was closed for a while - but the Ryanair website wasn't showing a cancellation so we shut up shop and headed to the airport.

Unsurprisingly, there was a delay - in fact the plane hadn't even left London - so we sat about in the sunshine and listened to the French rugby supporters singing their drinking songs as they too waited for the much delayed Dublin flight that would take them to the Six Nations match in Ireland.

Two hours late but at least the London flight came in first and finally we have arrived back home.

Homeward bound

A couple of weeks ago, Debrah said "Why don't you come over to London for our wedding anniversary?" (last Saturday - the 16th)

For whatever reason, we had no bookings for the middle weekend in August - people midweek either side but none for the weekend. So I jumped at the opportunity - so that we would be together for our anniversary, so that Debrah wouldn't spend a weekend alone in London and so that I had a break from the daily routine here - and I'm very glad that I did.

Of course, since booking the tickets, I could have sold this weekend several times over but I knew that was going to happen and just decided to ignore it.

So it was that I caught the Saturday afternoon flight to London - it had been 4 months since my last visit in mid April. I was excited about going and yet felt a bit daunted by the prospect. I guess the thing that made it all ok, and the big difference from previous trips, was that I was just going to see Debrah and not going to work for a part-time London job.

So we spent Saturday night and all day Sunday just lounging around in each others company watching the Olympic Games (or limpics as it's referred to in our household), eating and drinking and chatting and reading the papers.

Of course, we couldn't have picked a better weekend to watch British athletes excelling on the world stage. As ever, from our prone position in the bed, still in our night clothes late into the day, papers strewn around, we couldn't help but marvel at the dedication and strength of character and pain and heroicness of our medal winners and, blubbed with them all when our dirgelike national anthem was played, and blubbed even more with our even more heroic near-misses (womens rowing fours being the prime example).

The whole thing made the start of the new Premiership season seem like an irrelevance and although I watched Match of the Day for the first time in about a year, it all seemed very much the same as ever and not all that. Whereas I couldn't wait to wake up and see what new superlatives our boys and girls in China had reached whilst I was asleep.

I also realised how much I miss the BBC when I'm in France when it comes to sport action. France 2 and 3 do a very reasonable job I'm sure for their countrymen but it leaves me lacking a bit when I am trying to keep up with things over in Peking - you see the French are good at swimming, so I saw a lot of that, but are pretty useless at bikes (ditto the whole world compared to 'Team GB' - hate that phrase ) and boats, so haven't seen as much of that as I would have liked. I have seen a lot of fencing and judo and handball ( a sport we have no idea about in the UK) because that is where the French have eeked out a few medals or have a possibility of one. C'est la vie - as they say here.

I also missed the nuances of the fabulous commentary provided by the BBC - what a joy it was to get 36 hours worth. The French commentary is too fast for my understanding and (apart from the girl on the swimming who squeaked like a stuffed toy every time a frenchie got a medal) left me with a sense of missing something - which I was, the BBC.

Anyway, we aren't competing against the French - we just have to win more golds than the Aussies - job done.

Back in France all was as I left it - the sun was out and it was a bit too steamy to deal with the big pile of ironing and the suite that had to be got ready for new guests tomorrow - but sorted they are.

I was very glad of my time at home though - I am already missing Debrah - and Gabby and Steve and Clare and Adrian and John and Brendan and Colin and Sue and Michael and ......

Too much work, not enough money

So much to do and only one week in London to do it all. I always think that five full working days will be plenty of time but the hours just seem to disappear and the list of jobs gets longer rather than shorter as the week goes on.

If it was just work for my London job then I might get it all done, but even then that's not guaranteed - and we are going through another/ongoing difficult funding period and fees to Directors are the last thing to be paid which is causing financial difficulties just as we are trying to get the business in France off the ground.

I thought that I would be able to dovetail my two work lives, but the bookings are going so well that it looks increasingly difficult that I can continue to do both because it is going to be increasingly hard to get back to London as often as the business there will need. If I have to make a choice, it would have to be our own business not somebody else's. After all, this is our future.

As ever, there are also a number of other home administration/mundane jobs that need to be done which I don't want to leave Debrah to deal with when I am back in France. One such issue was that, somehow, we had been driving around for nearly a year without any car tax. I know what happened - we changed address, we didn't notify the DVLA and so we didn't get a reminder notice - an easy mistake but one that carries a potential £1,000 fine which was worrying Debrah somewhat. I called the DVLA and it is now all straightened out - a cheque for the back tax and a new tax disc from the Post Office for the next year - would you believe it though, I could only get to the Post Office on the day that the tax increased after the Budget - talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

A few firsts

Friday morning was spent closing up the apartments before my trip back to London for a week. It is always quite a sad event - closing up the shutters and turning off all the water heaters and other electrical items.

In fact one of the shutter support arms broke this week - in the very high winds that accompanied the sudden drop in temperature. The previous weekend I was in shirt sleeves and would have gone out for a drive on Sunday afternoon in the sunshine, if the car had started, and by Tuesday it was back down to freezing point, dumping a metre of snow on the mountains and the wind was howling. The wind resulted in our first bit of structural damage - a support arm on one the shutters in the end apartment clearly couldn't take the strain, was initially bent and finally snapped in two. It was a replacement arm and not one of the original really heavy metal ones - they obviously don't make them as well as they did.

It was a week of firsts. I had my first breakage by a guest - who managed to break the top off the lid of a china coffee pot. Fortunately, it was a clean break and after judicious use of some superglue you can't see the join. I found my first piece of left behind clothing by a guest - nothing embarrassing, just a polo shirt, which I bought back to the UK and will send on from here.
I also had my first journalist visit which went very well and hopefully will result in an article sometime in the press. I also had my first enquiry from a Norwegian, as a result of a new listing on a travel website that Debrah found.

I flew back to London on Friday - a slow journey at every stage - the flight took over two hours because of a very different route from usual - the train took over an hour and was certainly not an express and then North London traffic was all snarled up on a Friday evening, not helped by some idiot who had fired a gun at police up near Manor House - welcome back to the big city.

We had a quiet night in and were up early on Saturday (not with Debrah's approval) to visit Brent Cross shopping centre (sooo many people!) and then watched wall to wall English sport all afternoon (a luxury) before going out for dinner with friends (expensive - by Carcassonne, not London, standards). In fact it has been really lovely to be with Debrah and I am really enjoying being back here - so far - I have to go into the office tomorrow, though.

I visited the Apple store whilst in Brent Cross. My old laptop is three years old and displaying all the characteristics of shutting down permanently any day now - battery doesn't charge any more, CD stuck in the drive etc etc - but it has done sterling work back and forth on a plane every other week for three years. So I bought a new base level MacBook which I can't really afford, but then I can't afford to be without a computer either when I am running a business and managing another business via the internet. Whilst I was buying my new computer, Debrah was wandering about the store calmly bringing up our website on every computer - I believe that is our first bit of underground viral marketing.

It has been a pretty good weekend for the Apartments too, even though I am not there - I have taken four bookings over the last two days, one of which is for the two nights immediately after I return to France on Saturday next - it will be straight back into it when I get back.