Minnie’s Musings

Many moons ago BB and I stopped for a cup of hot chocolate in a cafe near Notre Dame. I was about 7 months pregnant so needed to sit down.

The presence of one’s derrière on a not particularly comfortable wooden spindle chair at table with chequered red and white table cloth appeared to warrant the equivalent of a £10 surcharge. A voluble WTF preceded our protest which was met with the inevitable Gallic shrug and almost comic “Zis is Paris”.

The other thing that trip ensconced itself in our dual memory was the teeniest, tiniest of hotel rooms somewhere in behind the Moulin Rouge (plus being charge £10 for a breakfast consisting of chocolat chaud and a pastry – 30 years ago FFS, so I am entitled to fume – where my then boyfriend, now husband, was propositioned for my services.

This was brought to mind when we eventually succeeded in negotiating the locks to access our apart-hotel and then our room. The building was extremely quaint and extremely snug. Its charms flew out the window when we realised that we would be spending the next three nights sidling around the bed and trying not to electrocute ourselves on the dodgy wall sockets.

To add insult to injury the kitchen and terraced promised in the advertisement was closed. So all that palaver in Montreal Station with redistributing the various breakfast items, fruit and half bottle of wine had been an unnecessary headache.

And my vociferous complaint to the office was met with a “We are sorry that you missed our notification about the kitchen etc that we sent out…” Passive aggressive gas-lighting, arghhhhh! Well we were not the only weary travellers who didn’t get the memo as we met other guests acting with equal bemusement as they hunted for somewhere to boil a kettle.

I suppose I should be grateful that the third or fourth eventful event – me leaving my bag in the Musee de Orsay (Sp?!) but not realising until we were about to climb Mont Matre – was not repeated. Though I recall myself marching back across the city in a fury to retrieve said bag – deprived of the cash in my purse – and can only admire the speed I achieved given the size of my tummy.

Quebec City has architecture that reminds you of Rouen.e Complete those high walled fire breaks which I have now learned are designed to stop flames leaping from roof to roof.