Wedding news

The hotel fire alarm went off at half past midnight on Sunday morning, just after most people had left the wedding party and gone to bed.  Left standing were the bride and groom, the bride's family, and many of the younger groovier lot, who I'd left jiving on the dance floor, taking selfies and drinking the remains of the champagne (cava) from the magnum bottles. So who would you expect to have let the fire alarm off?
The wedding took place in lovely surrounds in the Gilstrap Registration Office at Lincoln, next to the ruins of the castle. The groom was white with nerves before the ceremony, but you can see from this photo that now the vows have been made, the registrar's mispronunciation of his surname corrected, and the deed done, he's smiling proudly. His bride, who avows she does not want to be the centre of attention, quietly took the visual attention for the day, looking beautiful, - see her happy smile - but saying little.
The best man did my son proud, racing round the country to fetch the last-minute arrived bridesmaids' dresses, which all fitted each bridesmaid perfectly.  The best man also ran around getting people to sign a memory book against the polaroid pictures that a pair of friends had been taking of everyone.  And he made a great speech starting from how he first noticed my son at school in maths class, when one poked the other.  He described how he'd introduced the couple, and in explaining the couple's gradual revelation to their friends of their relationship, apologised to me that I was the last to know, for which he proposed a toast to me!  Well that's a first - a somewhat untraditional toast, but this best man has endeared himself to me for some time. He was the one a few years ago who helped my son to buy a new car.
At the reception, I met the bride's family at last.  I'd met her maternal grandparents, and her little brother, but now I had the pleasure of meeting her other, rather older grandparents, and her lively younger sisters. Her grandparents had stalwartly remained in the dancing room despite the deafening music, whilst my siblings and I had removed ourselves to a place where we could talk and tease each other.  Every now and again, I'd go back in for a dance. At midnight, most of us retired, including the bride's grandfather and grandmother.  They decided to have a shower before bed, but the shower would not turn off.  They had to call the hotel staff, who also could not turn it off. The water got hotter and hotter, until eventually the steam set the fire alarm off and woke most of those who had just gone to bed (not my sleepy husband who admitted that he'd only thought he'd heard it).  Fortunately, it went off again almost immediately and we did not have to leave our rooms, except the bride's grandparents. They had to change bedrooms because the hotel staff could not sort it out.  It was not the bride or the groom or the best man who set the fire alarm off. Nor her lively sisters.  It was the oldest guest - her grandfather!

Hotel service

As part of the Ramblers tour, we stayed four nights at the hotel in Foix, which was in the centre of an interesting old town.

On the Tuesday, we moved to the Hotel Bristol in Carcassonne. The room was airy, with a nice view over the canal, but therefore noisy at night, or quieter but hot if you closed the windows. I needed a pillow but to my surprise the pillows in the wardrobe had no pillowcases on. I had to wait until Wednesday, when the chamber maid put a pillow case on and in the afternoon I came back to a nicely made and comfortable bed.

On Thursday, I touched up my nails with new light blue nail varnish, then dashed out leaving the nail varnish in the bathroom (I think). Yet, in the evening I could not find the varnish again. Weird. I moved the furniture around, which revealed how dusty the carpet was. I left it like that. On Friday morning, the room was thoroughly vacuumed and the dusty carpet looked really clean but I never found the nail varnish.

Where NOT to stay

Here's where we shouldn't have stayed! It's next door to this Erotika shop, and there's a building site outside. The whole of the street, St Catherine's street was being dug up and rebuilt, so our taxi driver couldn't drop us off right at the door, which was probably just as well seeing as how horrified he was to drop us at the corner of St Catherine St and St Laurent. He'd have been even more upset to leave us in front of such a shop.

But the studio was big, and light, and the desk was manned 24 hours, so you felt secure. The bed was awful - you wouldn't want a bed like that for long, but tolerable and within work budget if I had to go again, and I was only there because work encouraged me to go to this academic conference. It was an opportunity too good to miss just because of low budgets and high costs.

Where we stayed

We didn't stay in a hotel or hostel at Bordeaux but a micro flat of about 20 square metres. The main room about 3 x 4 metres was reached through a corridor that included a door to bathroom and passed through the kitchen - a cooker top, next to a sink over a fridge with a cupboard and microwave above.

It has what we need: sheets, towels, cutlery, crockery. Apparently there's a washing machine somewhere in the building. Breakfast is available for a a couple of euros as in Internet access. It's convenient for tram train or bus. If you stay for a month or more it's only 34 euros a day. Though it's twice as much for a short stay, it would be worth if for an academic or business conference.

Arrived

It's nearly seven o'clock and it's dark. We reached Ahmedabad with only a slight delay in planes when we changed at Mumbai. You fly in over the shanty towns to the international airport, go through customs and wait in a rather unofficial unair-conditioned corridor while airport staff bustle about until a bus trundles you round to the domestic airport.

We are staying in the Host Inn Hotel, which announces that it is opposite Le Hotel Meridien (that's a posh one) in the district of Khanpur. K and his cousin met us at the airport and got a taxi to bring us here. We've changed some travellers cheques and any minute are leaving to join a family gathering.

We've changed some travellers cheques, which involved quite a palaver. First we asked here, then we asked in the Meridien, who asked if we were staying there. It transpires that hotels can change travellers cheques for their own guests only. But the Meridien reception very kindly rang our reception and explained everything he had to do. And when we got back to our hotel, he looked the cheques, and my passport, and made another phone call to get the instructions repeated. Then we had to wait half an hour. Eventually, we were lead into the dining room where two Muslim men were waiting with a calculator, a black bag and a list of exchange rates. We agreed the calculation, counted it out and waited while someone was sent to take photocopies of passport and visa. We drank tea. It was all very leisurely.