We were up bright and early, woken by beep-beep-beep from the television alarm call and Dave Brubeck’s Take Five from the iPhone. A leisurely ablute, pack and then down to St Pancras to mingle with those off to EuroDisney. The 9am train left from the platform opposite the 8.57am to Brussels. They kept announcing that our train was not the Brussels train. Eventually we left and enjoyed a very smooth journey, with eggs, mushrooms, lincoln sausage, tomato and potato for breakfast, plus endless coffee or tea. The ride was very comfortable—Network Rail is not responsible for the track!—and very fast, reaching the Channel Tunnel in about 30 minutes. A few weeks ago it took about three hours to get from Deal to St Pancras by car.

I was at first puzzled when we pulled into Paris Gare du Nord at 11.20 as I thought we were due in at 12.17 and thought we had an extra hour to make our connection. But of course Paris is an hour ahead and the ticket had local time on it. Thankfully I had pre-booked a taxi to get us the 5km to Gare de Lyon for the 12.57 connection. The taxi driver, Daniel, was a bit shocked when I told him the time, but we made it, via the Place de la Concord and the Place de Bastille, running the last leg and got on the train with 5 minutes to spare. A smooth journey, passing many vineyards on the way, as far as Dijon, where the TGV line rejoined the old track and then we slowed down as we climbed into the hills nearing Switzerland. Finally we arrived at Vallorbe, just over the border, and were met by Anne who was putting up with us for two weeks. A short drive brought us to Yverdon-Les-Bains, north of Lausanne and on the southern shore of Lake Neuchatel.

We discovered that it was Anne’s birthday (my bad memory—I thought it was August when I sent her a greetings telegram when she was on holiday in Greece in 1972) and the family were going out to dinner up the mountains to a restaurant in a converted barn. The speciality there was fondue, dipping lumps of bread into a hot cheese sauce, washed down with the local vintage. We passed an enjoyable evening speaking franglais (more glais than fran). Returning home (the photo above), after some catching up, we flopped into bed for a good night’s sleep.