Hello from across the Pond

Hi to everyone from the United States of America. I have had an astonishing number of hits from many parts of the United States and a big welcome (Croeso) to each and every one of you.

Paris to Cardiff and on home

I laughed when I saw our aeroplane from Charles De Gaulle to Cardiff International Airport in Wales. No offence to the carrier or anyone who booked the craft. We are very grateful, it's just that I have never flown on one before yesterday, that had propellers. OK, you can call them turbo-props, but to me they are simply propellers. And blinking noisy ones at that, with my bad ear and being sat close to the wing.

Now we aren't your typical sized people. Super-size would be a more fitting term. Boy oh boy it was a tight squeeze with Mrs. B and me sat side by side next to the part of the fuselage that impinges into the aircraft to aid where they bolt the wings on. No don't get me wrong, I would rather have a tight squeeze in the narrow part, than have the wings fall off. But the next time that I break down in Europe, I'm going to ask the lovely people at IMA to book me a better seat. One away from the fuselage intrusions and well away from the propellers.

It was great leaving the airport and finding a nice chap with a placard 'Mr Bennett'. The lovely man was from Premier Taxis in Cardiff. Now I didn't book him; the lovely people at IMA did. I'm a fatalist, and IMA Milan had managed to book us the only Taxi Company that I rate so much that I have their number in my telephone and always use when I am in our Capital City. Brilliant, well done IMA you came good again.

Firenze to Paris

I think that the American group said that they were from North Carolina. Of course it may be anyone of the 50 States, as yesterday was quite stressful. They were a great family, and enter into dialogue and banter with ease. This is the aeroplane that we shared with them from Florence to Charles De Gaulle airport in France. A lovely little machine, and the first aeroplane that I have ever been on where the wings are bolted on above the aircraft.

It was also a first for Pauline, as she has never flown before. Fair play to her, she did not display any outwards signs of nervousness. Pauline simply settled down for a good read of the English language novel that I was able to pick up in an Italian bookshop while we were away.

More people

...and of course there were the lovely German couple in Merzig, the hotelier and the staff in the bakery that remembered us from 2007. There was the really nice Libyan gentleman and his lovely Indian wife that we met in Firenze when we took a long bus ride on the number 14 around the city. Our friends from Wales who telephoned to check we were OK, and so on. In many ways this trip will be remembered more for the lovely people that we met than the problems with the car. We met a lovely American family in Florence Airport who were travelling to Geneva via Paris. What a pleasant family they were. And then there was the lovely chap on the FlyBE desk in Paris and the ladies in the Airfrance baggage office. One of whom came outside to show us the way to the free bus shuttle. There was the Canadians at Vimy Ridge in France, and all of those that I mentioned in an earlier post. There was the African lady and her baby smiling away on the Paris Charles De Gaulle CDGVAL (or the little train).

I think Pauline summed it up the best when she asked, "why is there so much war, with so many lovely people around?". In no particular order from our holiday there were; German, Welsh, Armenian, Brazilian, Libyan, English, Italian, Indian, American, French, and Canadian