the birm*

Soft kisses on you, national railway society!

Cryptic? I guess it is, as the above statement would only make sense if you had been in a few different (random) locations at the same time as I. But if you’re not in a hurry and want the explanation, read on!

Years ago a group of us headed down to Nobby’s foreshore for some gelato…actually that’s not true. We headed down there for a Bible study and talked about Gelato. The guilty parties were Dorge, Myself, Karen (ex-Lucas), Bec, Tall, Harley and possibly a few other people. We discussed the beauty of Gelato sorbet. Now at the time I’m not sure if I’d had some or not (this story is getting more and more complicated as I tell it!), so I’m unsure whether my comment on Gelato came during this time or if that’s the first time I’d heard about the stuff. ANYWAY, I mentioned (be it then or later) that Gelato (especially the lemon kind) tasted like a soft kiss (I’m told what a soft kiss is like…). Evidently bold statements like this one are a great conversation starter…

So here I am in the train with Candide, en route to Perpignan to see her family for a few days. The train, as all trains in France, is part of the SNCF, which translates National Rail-Way Society. SNCF trains are well known to be punctual. And when I say punctual, that’s exactly what I mean: you can set your watch by them. In fact, the network prides itself so much on punctuality that, unlike other train networks like the UK or Australia, where the trains are somewhat more punctual than baby due dates, if the train is more than 30 minutes late, you get 20% off your ticket.

You see where I’m going?

As we were waiting for the train in the hot French summer heat (about 30 degrees in the shade), the loudspeaker told us that the train would be 40 minutes late. I asked Candide if she wanted an ice cream and headed across the street where I’d spied a café on the way in. the café had nothing but bowls of ice cream, but the Italian specialties store across the road from it did.

Needless to say, the Gelato (vanilla for me and lemon for Candide) was more than welcome and aided in cooling off the wait. Thinking about it now, in the train, maybe I should have calculated what 20% of the fare was and bought a few more flavours…