Our House is Not in Paris by Susan Cutsforth

Metro, for ten stops, then changed again: an arduous undertaking that involved dragging our leaden bags up and down the many steep stairs. We made the second Metro connection, but by then time was rapidly ebbing and precious minutes were ticking away and I was becoming more and more anxious with every stumbling step. We got off with mere minutes to find the right platform for the train to Brive. Our tickets had already been booked and printed at home; we were as organised as possible with our meticulous planning. However, there were even more steps to face and I simply couldn’t go fast enough, despite fully realising the consequences.
    As seems to be a recurring experience in France, I told Stuart to run, to go as fast as he could and that I would catch up. I asked him to tell them I was right behind him and try to hold the train. I should have realised this was a futile suggestion, as one thing I remembered clearly about SNCF trains is that they depart not one second later than the schedule. In France, of all places where women are immaculate even when they travel, many complete with high heels, I was a dreadful spectacle, panting and struggling up the stairs, scarcely able to carry my suitcase. I made the fatal mistake of losing sight of Stuart, and the next fatal mistake of making a wrong turn. I collapsed in a heap on the platform to see the train imperiously departing into the distance. It all came down to a mere two minutes in a forty-two-hour journey. A few words were exchanged and then we went to see what we could do to remedy the situation. Very fortunately there was another train in two hours and, for a small fee, we were able to change the tickets. We then had to contact Jean-Claude, as we had arranged with him months ago to pick us up in Brive. Our organisation had again been so precise that we had even organised with him to stop at a supermarché to buy food for our first evening at Pied de la Croix. While on the plane, I had even written the list of what we needed to buy. My attention to detail meant that I had also written the extended shopping list for our first full day, when we would go to Martel to stock up properly.
    As with many major occasions in our lives — like buying our house at auction two years ago — our mobile always let us down. Once again, we were thwarted by technology. Stuart had bought a French mobile when he bought our house. This is the sort of thing that he takes care of very calmly and competently, and always impresses me enormously. It is in the category of setting up our French bank account and organising for our rates, water and electricity bills to be automatically deducted — basically, all the things that I simply don’t have a clue how to do. However, it seemed that, because the phone hasn’t been used for twelve months, the number had been disconnected. Of course, none of the phones take euros so Stuart bought a phone card. For some reason, he couldn’t get through to either Jean-Claude’s home number or Françoise’s portable . We later discovered that Françoise had lost her mobile just two days before. We knew Jean-Claude would be waiting on the dot of six in Brive and it was imperative that we contact him.
    Our next attempt to contact Jean-Claude was to try and find an internet café, but of course, in these days of laptops and wireless connections, such places are no longer as common. I then discovered a room at the station with a wireless internet connection and it was full of connected people. I frantically approached a friendly-looking young woman who was using her laptop and blurted out my dilemma. She was immediately simpatico and offered to let me use her laptop. I, however, cannot use one without a mouse. She then logged in to my email for me — I told her she now had my whole life in her hands, as she had my email password. I hastily dictated a short message to Jean-Claude to let him know our new arrival time. Next,