Catching Up

The two week sojourn in the Eastern Med is over. We left on Saturday and endured probably the worst flight I have ever experienced. All those people who are constantly slagging off Ryanair have obviously never flown on Excel Airways (a misnomer if ever there was). We asked for extra legroom and were given the two worst seats on the plane - both aisle seats on the very last row, i.e. immediately in front of the toilets. The flight was delayed by a non-existent water leak that took them two hours to diagnose and one hour to tell us what was happening. The cabin crew were the rudest I have ever encountered - sniggering behind their hands after lying to our faces about the situation. Debrah was so incensed I thought she was going to explode - or punch someone - in the end she contented herself with defacing the inflight feedback survey with some very blunt and un-ladylike words about what she felt at that moment.

A five hour delay going out and a two hour delay coming back - I can honestly say I will never take an Excel airways flight again.

I had resigned myself to mising the England v Estonia football match on Saturday afternoon but had texted ahead for Christian to record it, which he kindly did - not sure when my stepson became so reliable and helpful but I'm all for it. Our expected travel schedule was perfect for getting home just in time to watch the England v France Rugby World Cup semi final. I had pictured us walking through the door, putting our bags down, turning on the telly and watching the singing of the national anthems. Didn't quite work out like that though - a two hour delay meant we got home just in time to walk through the door, put our bags down, turn on the telly and watch the post match interviews. Bugger.

Still, we won and typically, not a Frenchman in sight when you need one to rub their faces in it - Gerard from the Makhila bar would have been perfect because I have still not forgiven him for turning off the English anthem when I last watched a game in his bar - downright rude and disrespectful it was.

36 hours after getting off that flight I was back on my reliable Ryanair 'bus' to Carcassonne to find out what has been going on in my absence and to try and come to an agreement with the plasterers that Simon had promised. Simon couldn't make it over so two Poles and one Englishman tried manfully to conduct a negotiation in french which didn't come to a conclusion but will do so hopefully in the next day or so.

It also appears that whilst I have been away the Irish bar has closed down, which is a bit of a shock. I still haven't got to the bottom of why - maybe it was just not profitable (it was empty most of the summer) or maybe the owner, Michel, has gone off to stay at a government establishment (equally likely given his propensity for a touch of GBH). One thing is for sure - nobody shuts a bar with a big screen in the middle of a rugby world cup - well, not before the host nation have been knocked out anyway! I shall have to make some enquiries.

Beating the Aussies

Saturday 6th October

Another beautiful dawn and another beautiful sunrise, but I never get tired of watching it.

Today is changeover day and this time next week we will be leaving, but for it is the majority of the other guests who are going and a new batch of victims arriving for Debrah to analyse.

In true Debrah fashion, she tries to change our hotel room for a better one but the place is fully booked for the next week so we have to stay where we are.

At the Beach Club we overhear one of our fellow guests, for whom some things are not quite good enough. “This sand’s not quite the right colour, is it?”, he intoned. Oh, please just go away.

Lunch as ever is very good at the Beach Club. Today we share a kofte ekmek, a minced lamb burger with roasted tomato and onion, and a fatoush, a tomato, cheese, basil and bread salad, all washed down with a carafe of rose.

We miss the minibus to come back up to the hotel but one of the staff takes us back in his own car which is very good of him.

I discover that the England v Australia game is being shown on the TV at the hotel and, despite what I said the day before, my sport watching instincts get the better of me. Debrah settles herself by the pool for a while. Agonisingly, for some guests they have to leave before the end of the match to get their flights home – a phone call from reception to the bus driver will have cheered them up. Sadly, there don’t appear to be any Australians staying.

After the game Debrah and I enjoy a glass of wine and a tin of stuffed vine leaves sitting on our terrace in the quiet that always descends at dusk, just as it is at dawn.

We have dinner at the Beach Club. It is a superb setting – the ideal place to completely forget all your cares for a few hours. Debrah forgets to bring a cardigan and the temperature is just slightly cooler than previous evenings, but ever attentive, the hotel staff produce a pashmina for her.

Back at the hotel, I catch the second half of the France v NZ match and witness another fabulous display by a Northern Hemisphere team. Sadly, the only Kiwi at the hotel left this afternoon.

At the Rugby

Six months ago I bought some tickets for two Rugby World Cup matches. There was a plan at the time but a lot can happen in six months. By the time we were booking a two week trip to Turkey leaving on 29th September I had forgotten all about the three tickets for South Africa v USA on the 30th - forgetful old fool that I am. Furthermore, 'the genius' is back in SA watching it on the telly when he should have been watching his team live here. Oh well, best laid plans and all that.

That still left two tickets for Samoa v Tonga - a South Sea Island local derby with no love lost, I am told. My very good friend, Kieron, said he would love to come over if he could fit it in with his work schedule, his wife's work schedule, care for his lovely kids and care for his bank balance. In the end money and work prevented him coming - I think the family were sorted - but he's still 'gutted' about it and sent me an email this evening to ask how it was.

Well it was an excellent day out in Montpellier and I'm very glad I was able to see at least one of the matches at this World Cup live and in the flesh. In the end it was Simon, whom I met whilst sat on an aeroplane that wasn't going anywhere very quickly about a week or so ago, who not only took up my spare ticket today but has also taken the other three for two weeks time off my hands as well.

As the organisers were clearly trying to discourage people driving to the matches, I decided to put my faith in the highly respected French railways. I went online yesterday and planned my route, times, trains and finally seat numbers - paid for them and then collected them at the station this morning from the automatic machines. The train arrived at the appointed time to the minute, my seat was as it should be (i.e. unoccupied by someone else) and it pulled into Montpellier station at 12.59 exactly, as advertised. In between I was treated to fabulous views of the Minervois, the Etang de Thau, the yachts on the Mediterranean and the towns of Narbonne, Beziers and Sete.

Simon had joined the train at Beziers and so, once in Montpellier, we set off to find a good pre-match lunch and catch up on what had been going on in the week since we had spent several wasted hours at Stansted airport. Simon knew a really good restaurant he had been to before, that specialised in the local fish and seafood, and would be just perfect. It would have been perfect but, being France, it was closed, naturally - I ask you, there is a Rugby World Cup match taking place in the city and about twenty thousand or so visitors with a load of cash to dispose of are milling around looking for somewhere to have a good lunch, so why would you possibly open up, unless you were worried about the prospect of making a profit and paying some tax or maybe they were put off by having to serve more than four tables. Incroyable! - as they say in these parts. It continues to amaze me how the French have an economy at all.

In fact, there were plenty of forward-looking entrepreneurial enterprises who were begrudgingly (it was now 1.20 or so) admitting 'late' diners for lunch. We just sat down at a table - yes, without announcing ourselves first - dreadfully rude, I know. Clearly our natural charm and good looks (not to mention Simon's excellent French) must have counted for something because we were served (eventually) a very decent charcuterie platter and some very drinkable wine which satisfied us perfectly.

The stadium is on the edge of the city and so we had to hop onto Montpellier's much lauded tram system for the 20 minute journey round the houses, university faculties and halls of residence out to the 'stade'. Once there, what struck me was virtually a complete absence of commercial exploitation of the fans - no program sellers, no burgers and hot dogs and chips, no ice cream stalls, no scarves and hats and badges, no police horses - it's not a proper match without a police horse. At least somebody checked my ticket and someone else did a very scant security check - as in they didn't look in my bag and they patted my pockets to which I replied 'camera' and 'phone' in turn and waved me through. They did take the plastic top off Simon's plastic bottle of water though, just to be on the safe side.

Mind you, an international rugby crowd is a different kettle of fish to an English Premiership football match - there is no swearing, spitting, racism, sexism or general air of menace - which is nice. Instead, there were people of all the rugby nations sat side by side in the glorious sunshine. There was a brass band at either end of the stadium playing bull-fighting trumpet calls to which the crowd responded 'Ole' and a succession of traditional local tunes, such as 'Roll out the Barrel !!'. There were people employed to start Mexican waves whenever it went a bit quiet.

And the game? Two Hakas for the price of one ticket was a good start. It took time to get going and looked like Samoa were on top but Tonga were fired up for the second half and scored the only try and hung on for a memorable win with two men short for the last ten minutes after a high tackle and a good old elbow to the head produced a red card for the No 6 and a professional foul produced a sin-bin for another. For Tonga the guy with the massive Afro hair stood out for obvious reasons as well as his rugby and for Samoa the No 11 is someone I would never ever like to see running at me with intent. There were a number of massive hits in the second half, mostly from Tonga, that bought a collective 'Ooohhh' from the crowd. From the body language at the end of the game I'd say the Tongans were 'over the moon' and the Samoans were 'sick as a parrot'.

Actually, I'm a bit sad I'm not going to any other games now. You can watch all the sport in the world on the TV, with different camera angles and commentary and stats but you can't beat being there and seeing it and feeling it - unless you are watching England that is.