Four hours at Massy on a Saturday evening
It was VERY COLD so we looked forward to another coffee and/or chocolate in the café opposite the RER station at Massey. Maybe even a meal, if the price was right.
It was closed. 4 pm and the café was closed!
Still, there was the coffee bar at the TGV station. It was not very warm there in the station concourse, but beggars can’t be choosers.
It was closed.
Carol asked the man in the station newsagent if there was a café in the area that was open.
There wasn’t. Not even a hot drinks machine.
What misery! Not only that, the station concourse was very cold. Still, the waiting room was heated and there were these rather attractive tall infrared heaters in the concourse - attractive because before the evening was out there was a little crowd of us huddled round them like moths around a lightbulb.
But there’s always someone worse off than yourself, isn’t there? We had a four-hour wait for our train to Bordeaux, but at least it was on time. The poor people going to Rennes - well their TGV was coming from Marseille up the Rhone valley and was strongly perturbed by the falls of snow (the wrong KIND of snow, one wonders?). So the last we knew it was two hours late.
I say the last we knew because when the announcer said that the Bordeaux train was on the platform we sneaked off quietly leaving our Rennes friends on the verge of rioting, chanting "one wants hot coffee" and discussing with one another the abject misery of their situation.
And their train still hadn’t come.
We got back at 00h30 to lovely Bordeaux, sprinkled with snow. Never before has my duvet seemed so inviting!
It was closed. 4 pm and the café was closed!
Still, there was the coffee bar at the TGV station. It was not very warm there in the station concourse, but beggars can’t be choosers.
It was closed.
Carol asked the man in the station newsagent if there was a café in the area that was open.
There wasn’t. Not even a hot drinks machine.
What misery! Not only that, the station concourse was very cold. Still, the waiting room was heated and there were these rather attractive tall infrared heaters in the concourse - attractive because before the evening was out there was a little crowd of us huddled round them like moths around a lightbulb.
But there’s always someone worse off than yourself, isn’t there? We had a four-hour wait for our train to Bordeaux, but at least it was on time. The poor people going to Rennes - well their TGV was coming from Marseille up the Rhone valley and was strongly perturbed by the falls of snow (the wrong KIND of snow, one wonders?). So the last we knew it was two hours late.
I say the last we knew because when the announcer said that the Bordeaux train was on the platform we sneaked off quietly leaving our Rennes friends on the verge of rioting, chanting "one wants hot coffee" and discussing with one another the abject misery of their situation.
And their train still hadn’t come.
We got back at 00h30 to lovely Bordeaux, sprinkled with snow. Never before has my duvet seemed so inviting!
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