Getting to know the Tudors and the Stuarts

J. has decided that he wants to study history. A boy after my own heart. “What can I become if I study history Mummy?” he asked me the other day.
“Err, well, now let me think about this … a history teacher I guess.”
Not a bad job. I wouldn’t mind it.
There seems to be a “history” revival underway in the VC-G household. It used to be all about plumbing, plastering and quotes. Now we have progressed and actually have some time to read again. For the moment historical novels are very popular. This can be traced back to Aunty Beatrice who had the fabulous idea of giving J. a set of the Horrible History books for Christmas last year. I would never have thought that they would have been such a hit with J. - but they are and second only to Harry Potter in J.’s best book league.
I have never read the Horrible Histories but Gemma O’Reardon and I swore that it was Jean Plaidy and Jean Plaidy alone who got us through our history O- and A-levels – or other such trashy historical novels.
But its not just J. who is “into” historical books at the moment. Phillipa Gregory, the latest writer of historical romances, is doing the rounds. I managed to read three, no less, of her books over the summer holidays and G. is currently on his second: “The Boleyn Inheritance” following on from “The other Boleyn girl”.
G. is a wonderful English History and English Literature virgin. When the BBC did an adaptation of Jane Eyre last year it was great to see him completely fascinated as to what was going on in the attic and not having a clue about Rochester’s murky past.
“So who was Ann Boleyn again? Did she come to a sticky end then?” and
“Katherine Howard how does she fit into all of this? Who was she related to?”
I can’t blame him in a way there are so many Jane’s and Ann’s and Mary’s – and Katherine’s of course even I get them mixed up.
Unlike J, G was obviously not bought up with the Horrible Histories (very UK-centric) but with completely other myths and legends – of which I hasten to add I too know very little.
However, G is fast becoming a Tudor expert having worked his way through all those Phillipa Gregory novels and we have discovered a new line in Tudor insults.
So, the other day, having listened to “Mary Stuart and her hopeless Husbands” on cd in the car, I announced rather irritably because I was in a rush and needed some help and G. had promised to play Monopoly with J. when there was so much to be done.
“You know G – you’re as bad at Mary Stuart. In trying to please everyone you end up frustrating everyone.”
To which G. replied
“Yeah, well you’re just like Henry VIII a tyrant and a fiend.”
“Rather a tyrant and fiend than having to make a run for it all the time.”
“Yeah but Henry VIII was big and fat and ugly.”
“Rather big and fat and ugly and dying in my bed than having my head cut off.”
…and so on and so forth …All tongue in cheek of course.
Luckily, J was still busy setting up Monopoly on the table outside with his sights on Park Lane. Hampton Court isn’t on the Monopoly board – good thing too otherwise I may have had to boot G. off to the tower or had him executed in order to claim it as my own. I am a tyrant and a fiend in best tradition of Henry VIII after all.

Bomb alerts and stinking loos

“Grab your bags quick kids.” G. ordered as the angel from Paris, who had allowed us to squeeze the C8 on the train that was about to depart, filled in forms and asked me to sign “…here please”.

The kids all jumped out of the car and I grabbed our overnight bag. We then stood and watched as someone drove the car away into the bowls of the station. We had made it. I still couldn’t quite believe that we had managed it. Am not quite sure why we had all got ourselves so worked up but somehow it was absolutely critical, just critical, that we managed to get the car onto the Bordeaux train.

Half an hour later and we were sitting on a little shuttle-bus to the Gare d’Austerlitz. We were all so elated and happy and still congratulating ourselves on having found the station that it was agreed we would treat the kids to a plate of chips and a drink. It was around eight thirty in the evening and the station was full of busy travellers and tourists heading in all directions. Our train wasn’t leaving until midnight so we had time on our hands to kill.

R., as usual, was not in the least bit sleepy and insisted on jumping out of his buggy and running amok up and down the platforms where all the big heavy TGVs were parked.

“What a good thing G. didn’t have to leave me here with the kids and drive off on his own”. I kept thinking.

We took it in turns to keep a beady eye on R., who was happily jumping, springing and darting hither and thither as well has having a good bash at all the vending machines. By ten o’clock the bustling tourist and busy commuter had disappeared to be replaced by grizzly tramps. Guess they had been there all along we just hadn’t noticed them and once the home commuter frenzy had passed they seemed well, to crawl out of the wood-work. One of them was sitting close to the café where we ate our chips. He was a very dusty looking clochard with hardened, waist-length, dreadlocks and who came complete with a stale stench of urine and alcohol. He kept trying to shake R’s hand and calling him “mon petit” and “viens ici.”

By eleven I was beginning to feel drained but still we followed R. around the station – he would rest in his buggy for as long as it took him to drink a bottle of milk – and then he was off again. The time seemed to drag by and I was really looking forward to hitting the couchette and going to sleep. Yet, still we looked at the huge screen waiting for it to announce what platform the train would be leaving from. At around ten to twelve – five minutes before our train was to depart, a posse of heavily armed policy began herding the few remaining travellers off the platforms and into the main body of the station. They cordoned-off the platforms with red and white tape. Ugly guard dogs on leads began bellowing hollow barks up to the glass roof of the Gare d’Austerlitz.

“What’s happening G?” I asked. “Have you seen anything?”
“It’s a bomb. It’s a bomb.” J. shouted out at the top of his voice.
“No J..” G. said “They probably just discovered some drugs in the loos or something like that.”
“No, Daddy it’s a bomb – I think it’s a bomb.”

Still, the dogs went on barking and the machine guns carried by Austerlitz’s finest police began to add a sense of menace to our late night adventure. I wished J. would stop shouting “It’s a bomb.” all the time. It unnerved me. I began looking around for possible hollow spaces where I could take my family for cover should we need it.

Standing behind us was an English family that we hadn’t spotted before and they began chatting to us. In true British style they were calm, collected and not in the least bit worried that we may fall victim to some nasty bomb-plot. They chatted instead about night-trains and Bayonne and the travel agency they had booked through and their teenage daughters and hey presto before I knew it the time had passed, the red and white tape peeled away and the platform was finally announced from which our train was leaving.

Now, let me tell you. If ever you should be in the unfortunate situation where you strongly suspect that the ship is about to sink in gale force winds then you should seek to surround yourselves by Brits. No exaggeration. No other people I know have such a good knack of making even the worst situation look like “its just going to be a wet picnic nothing worse”. The philosophy of “lets not make a drama out of a crisis shall we – a bit embarrassing to get hysterical hey”, is, in its own way, very reassuring. So, just to say I was very grateful to have bumped into that nicely family from Bath at midnight.

The next stage was to get the children settled and asleep. Easier said than done. Me? Well personally I would have crashed on the couchette there and then and just pulled the blanket over me. Sadly though that was not an option. We still had four kids to calm down. Although past midnight all four little darlings were all hyped-up and excited and fighting in which bunk they were going to sleep. I was reminded just how narrow the carriages were – well it had been a long time since last I’d last taken a couchette.

There was barely enough room to move so I sat down on the bottom bunk with by head scrapping the middle bunk, whilst trying to stop R. from climbing like a monkey from the bottom, to the middle, to the top couchette and at the same time trying to put his pyjamas on. He had a stinking, foul, pamper that needed to be changed urgently. In the meantime L. got angry with K.M. who had “elbowed” her whilst J. was defending his top bunk with growls and targeted kicks at any sibling who dared peep their head over the top.

I finally managed to get them all into their nighties and pyjamas when they all said. “I need the loo.”.

“Hmm… better do it now rather than at two in the morning.” I thought so I took them down to the loo all dressed in their clean nighties and pj’s.

Nothing, let me tell you nothing, can prepare you for the horror of an SNCF loo. Not even the loo from “Trainspotting”, which is universally regarded as the worst there is, is as bad as what confronted us. No self respecting drugs dealer would have hidden a white package down there. But then again - perhaps it was a white package that was blocking the loo? I don't know.

There was only one loo working for three carriages. The fact that the door didn’t lock properly was the least of my worries. When we finally got into the tiny cabin I was relieved that I had insisted the children put their shoes on. The floor was covered in urine and used bits of pink toilet paper. The toilet itself did not flush so it had the remains of previous passenger’s bowl and bladder movements in there and the stench that permeated everything made one gag and want to retch – but where else to go? The train was already moving by now and none of the other loos were working.

In my day I have come across some really nasty public loos – but never with three children all dressed in clean white nighties and Spiderman pyjamas.

I barked instruction:

“Do not touch anything children. Do not sit on the loo K.M. hover over it.” (Not that she was going to. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as I did.) J. do not look. Finished. Good. Go."

L. I picked up as last and she peed as she would have done were we camping in the forest. Luckily she hit target and was shooed away to the carriage as soon as it was over. It was at this point that I felt hugely relieved R. wasn’t potty trained yet and although it had been a pain changing his pampers it was better than trying to get him to “do wee wee” on this horror of a loo.

Back in the carriage G. was still sorting things out whilst R. giggled and hopped on his bunk. It took a while to get everyone settled but at around one in the morning we finally switched the light off.

Five minutes later G. , who was sleeping next to R. on the bottom bunk suddenly said in the dark.

“Oh s…t R. has got another stinky.”

So the lights were turned back on again and we fumbled around for the pampers bag and the wipes. Needless to say this woke everyone up all over again and R. in particular. When we had turned the lights-off for the second time. L. and R. were giggling hysterically with each other and pulling the curtain backwards and forwards from their respective bunks.

Having warned L. “to stop it” around five times I finally got off the top bunk and gave her a hard spanking – for which she never forgave me for the rest of the summer holidays.

But hey, the carriage finally calmed down and everyone went to sleep – of sorts. It was now a quarter past two in the morning.

Three and a half hours later G’s alarm went off and we were all up again hurrying the kids to get ready since the train would be pulling into the station in half an hour. We had only just got the last bag sorted out when the train pulled into Bordeaux St Jean at six in the morning. The station was empty as we all spilled out of the train that was going on to Bayonne and Hendaye in Spain. Phew we had made it. Truth be told though I felt as exhausted as if we had driven through the night.

We were entitled to a breakfast in the station buffet which was very welcomed after the night we had had – coffee, hot chocolate, croissants, pain-au-chocolat and orange juice. It revived us all and we felt a thousand times better.

When we went to go and collect the car we all felt very cheerful and happy and ready for the holiday to begin. It was only a two hour drive from Bordeaux to Montaut. We had plenty of reasons to feel in a good mood.

Perfidious Periferique

Nilly told me you see. That you can load the car on the train in Paris and then take the night train to Bordeaux and that one arrives early the following morning in the south west of France all refreshed and ready for a holiday. Fantastic idea. .

The fact that we had to board the car at the Gare de Bercy and then make our way to the Gare d’Austerlitz to take the a second train at midnight hardly mattered. The SNCF website was pretty lousy and we were unable to fathom how to book on-line. Instead we left it up to a travel agency to organise.

The info package that arrived with the tickets indicated that we had all day to leave the car at the Gare de Bercy – between 9 and 19:30. Plenty of time really. But, on the morning of our departure G. still had to go to some fancy graduation ceremony and later I still had to do some last minute shopping and what with getting everything sorted out and packed and locked up it was three o’clock before we hit the road. Not to worry its only three hours to Paris and the Gare de Bercy – that’s close to the Stade de France. Isn’t it? We pass that all the time when we drive to Bordeaux. Don’t we? Must be a big station being so close to the Stade de France. Impossible to miss. Signposted right up to the entrance. Right?

We arrived at the outskirts of Paris at a quarter to six on a nice sunny Saturday evening. Stack load of time to get the car onto the train. The kids were all in high-spirits clutching their over-night bags and chattering in the back. In front of me I had the route planner that G. printed out before we left. I have failed to persuade him to buy one of these sat-nav things. (“Biggest reason for cars being broken into” he always asserts) and so we rely on AA print-outs, only this time for some reason it was a Michelin print-out. Having remembered to pack just about everything else in the house for some reason we didn't pack a map of Paris. Things were going really well. We passed the first sign as indicated, the second and the third. Next one should be the Porte de Bercy. Our exit – but we found no signs for the Porte de Bercy and so we drove on along the ring-road around Paris…and on…and on….and on…and

“Shouldn’t we have passed the Stade de France and signs to Bercy by now G? I think we’ve driven too far?”

“No. It’ll come. Be patient. We always pass it and we haven’t seen any signs for Bercy yet. Don’t worry.”

“O.K”

In the meantime J. had taken up some game with R involving arm wrenching and lots of screeching and giggling.

“Can you stop that please. Daddy is trying to concentrate. We are in the middle of Paris you know and traffic is heavy.”

J and R ignored us and went on making the most annoying, distracting sounds. It was true the traffic was beginning to build up heavily and G. had to concentrate hard. We drove on…and on… and on. The time by now was edging towards a quarter to seven.

“G. are you sure we shouldn’t have passed Bercy by now? The town looks as though its thinning out a bit.”

In fact by now the only signs, well more or less, were those directing us to the A10 and Bordeaux. I had this distinctly uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that soon we would be hitting the toll station leading us onto the motor-way direction south-west. G. finally admitted that it looked as though we had indeed passed Bercy and we would have to turn back. He got off the ring road. Somewhere. I forget where exactly. By now it was five minutes past seven and we had just 25 minutes to make it to the Gare de Bercy through the late evening Paris traffic. I looked at our tickets again.

It said: the car train for Bordeaux leaves at eight o’clock. The deadline for passengers to leave their car is seven-thirty.

I rang the station up.

“Errr – I think we may be just a bit later than seven thirty. Does it matter?”
“Well, where are you? You must hurry the train can not wait.”
“I know. We are doing our best we are in …” I gave him the name of the suburb we had just left.
“But that’s miles away from Bercy. You’ll just have to hurry and be here for 7.30.”
“We’re doing out best but if you could just old on a few more minutes….” But he had already put the phone down.

By now the children were beginning to pick up that something was wrong and even J. decided to quit playing with R.

“Are we going to miss the train?” J. asked quietly “because I really want to catch it and get to Oma and Grandpa tomorrow.”

“Look don’t worry J.” G. said trying to sound reassuring. “I have a plan B. If we miss the train you can still catch the midnight train from Austerlitz and I’ll drive through the night and meet you in Bordeaux tomorrow morning.”

“That sounds more like plan Z than plan B to me Daddy.” J retorted.

I agreed with my eldest. The whole reason why we had opted for this expensive solution was so that G. wouldn’t have to drive through the night. Having come home at 1 a.m. G. was hardly fit for a long haul drive along the motorway in the wee hours of the morning.

“I’ll ring Becky.” I said “She can go on-line and guide us through Paris toward the Gare de Bercy.”

“Not to worry K. Just tell me where you are exactly?” Becky sounded very calm and reassuring but the signs were flying past us as this stage and changing every minute, so that I wasn’t exactly sure where the hell we were on that hell-hole of the Paris ring-road.

“Look. Just get off the ring-road and head onto the Periferique. If you see the sign Port d’Orleans get off there because you’ll be heading in the right direction.”

“Port d’Orleans. Oh yes, there it is. There it is G. Quick we need to get off here.”

G. swerved off the ring-road and we came onto the peripherique - and a stand-still.

“Keep going until you see a sign saying Porte d’Italie – the next one is the Porte de Bercy – the station must be close to the Porte. Its really not far, it’s more or less the next one.” Becky told me. Only problem was that we weren’t “going” anywhere. We were crawling somewhere but whether it was even in the right direction we had no idea. Becky kept telling me “You should see a sign post to … and then follow direction ….” But we could find nothing and it was now twenty past seven.

Since we were stuck in traffic anyway and whizzing nowhere I rolled the windows down and tried to call out to the guy in the car next to us – but he just looked embarrassed and giggled to his fellow passenger.

“Oh for heavens sake.” I thought I’m not flirting with you. So, I kept waving my hands but he just kept giggling. We inched forward and I tried with the next driver.

“Excusez-moi, mais savez vous ou est le Gare de Bercy? GARE DE BERCY? Quelle direction?”

He looked at me, paused, thought, gave a fantastic, fatalistic, not what I wanted, Gallic shrug but managed“C’est pas ici. If faut retourner. L’autre direction” before he drove on.

“Turn around. Turn around” I instructed and G. got into the right lane to turn around. Then the traffic lights turned red. Finally, however, we saw signs to the “Port de Bercy”, Phew. It must be close, it must be close. So close but still we crawled and crawled and crawled from one traffic light to the next.

We really needed to catch that train. Not only would we be wasting close to EUR 600 if we missed it I would also have to manage four children on my own in some dodgy Paris station at night and worrying all the time about G. driving, alone, along the motorway. Missing the car train had just never occurred to me and made it all the more galling that we were heading for plan Z.

I rang Becky back. “Did you manage to get hold of the Gare de Bercy?” I asked.

“No – no one’s picking up.”

I had the same problem.

“Well we’ve passed the Port d’Italie” I said.

“Oh good. The next one is Port de Bercy. You have to go over a bridge and then you’ll see the Port de Bercy. Get off there.”

It was true. Beyond the bridge I saw signs to the Port de Bercy but we were driving so slowly and it was already twenty to eight. We would never make it on time. My heart was sinking. Only twenty minutes and we still had no idea where the station was. Eventually we got off at the Port de Bercy and were led onto a busy dual-carriage way where the police were managing the heavy traffic. No one we asked had a clue where the Gare de Bercy was. They kept thinking we meant the Gare de Lyons. We even asked the gendarmes where the Gare de Bercy was but all we got in response was a rather snappy “Circule! Circule!” and a hand waving round and round.

Suddenly, just out of view from the gendarme, I spotted a large station to our left – in the other direction to where we were heading.

“G! G! I think its there. I can see a big train station. We have to turn around.”

Rather than waiting until we hit the next set of traffic lights G. decided to do a massive big U-turn in the middle of the dual carriage way, and squeeze the car through a gap in the barrier on the other side– a gap which should not really have been there. Happily for the C8 and us there was no on-coming traffic. They were still stuck behind the traffic lights just ahead. Luckily for G. we were also just out of view of the gendarme. Had he seen G.’s driving I suspect he may have spent the night in a cell with the local down and outs, rather than a SNCF couchette (were we to even make it).

We ended up along some narrower side-streets and away from the main roads but traffic was still crawling and there were still too many traffic lights. To the left an enormous railway station lay sprawled out – but where was the entrance? Any one we asked had never heard of the Gare de Bercy. The massive station to our left was the Gare de Lyon. Finally we found someone who knew where the station was. Four more traffic lights to go and the traffic and turn left …. the traffic was still crawling.

I gave up hope of ever making it. It was now 19. 54. Six minutes before the car train pulled out of the station and still all those traffic lights. We did make it to the fourth set of lights and turned left as instructed but still we found no signs indicating that this was the wretched Gare de Bercy. So, G. turned around and drove all the way back from where we had come. Back to the dual carriage way. There we discovered a forlorn entrance to somewhere heading towards the Gare de Lyons. Outside sat a solitary security guard.

“Gare de Bercy? Gare de Bercy?” we practically screamed at the poor guy.

“Oh no not here. You have to turn around. On the fourth set of traffic lights turn left and then left again.”

I rang Becky. “Look I think we’ll miss the train.” I said we are so close but we can’t find the bloody Gare.

“It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings” she assured me. “Keep trying and you’ll make it. I’m sure.”

I was trying to feel more confident but we had only four minutes to go through four sets of traffic lights let alone find where the elusive entrance to off-load cars at the Gare de Bercy was.

For some reason we kept driving and somehow at 19.58 we saw one single, paltry, pathetic little sign post practically opposite the damn thing saying “Gare de Bercy”.

Stuck behind yet another traffic light it was decided that I would jump out of the car and run inside to ask where we had to be. The station itself was disappointingly unimposing. Not in the least what we had expected when we had set off so hopefully earlier that afternoon. I barged my way to the front of the queue demanding “Car terminal. Where do the car trains leave from?” The guy just looked at me and gave me yet another Gallic shrug. Arggghhhh…. I ran to some nearby doors to try and see if I could find it and halt the train from leaving - when I saw a most beautiful sight.

G. coming out of the car with the children saying:

“Its alright. We’ve made it. They’ve agreed to drive the car on for us.”

J. looked at me and said

“Mummy. Now I know that God exists. I prayed so hard that we would make it and we did.”

I was literally trembling still not quite believing that we had made the train. The time: 19:58.