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I feel like I need a couple of matchsticks to pry my eyes open with right now. But it’s been a wonderful day. I fell asleep very easily last night, before 10pm – very early for me. Annoyingly, I woke up at 3am but I slept sporadically after that before finally deciding that it was probably time...

Exactly. What happens in Write Club, stays in Write Club!

Chapter 4: If Only They Could Write This chapter title is an homage to James Herriott. I grew up reading his books and watching All Creatures Great and Small … and now here I am, within spitting distance of the Yorkshire Dales! The Writers’ Workshop has started. Because what is covered there...

Having downloaded the Trainline app as instructed, I attempted to book a train ticket to Hebden Bridge. I was mostly successful, but there were a couple of rookie errors in the mix too. In my defence, the app is more than a little user-unfriendly. But I ventured across the road to Manchester...

… And woke up at 8am. Not nearly enough sleep, and it’ll be a massive day. I awoke to the news of a totally unexpected “Trip Report of the Month” honour! I went downstairs for the breakfast, past the bar area… ...To the breakfast buffet. It was a confusingly-laid-out but perfectly functional...

The flight ended up boarding at 12:45am, departing at 1:15am and landing at 1:35am (Manchester time) – three hours and fifteen minutes behind schedule. Unfortunately, the captain announced that the long delay was due to “the crew being delayed on their incoming flight due to severe...

Wow…. Didn’t see that coming at all. Thanks so much!

I left the lounge and walked into the terminal to use my EUR11 credit. Of course, all the eateries were closed (as was everything else). Big CDG Airport Cat. My flight has now been delayed further to 1:00am, with a current arrival estimate of 2hours 58 minutes behind schedule. Hey Air...

The departure has been pushed back to 12:30am (originally scheduled for 9:50pm), and the flight is now scheduled to arrive 2 hours and 31 mins late. I suppose a worst-case scenario would be arriving 2 hours and 59 minutes late! Given where the delay is now at, at this point an extra 29 minutes...

So I've been spending part of this delay checking my rights under EC261. If the flight arrives three hours late or more, I'm entitled to EUR250. Currently it's due to arrive 1 hour and 40 minutes late. Air France has emailed to say that the reason for the delay is "operational reasons", so that...

AF1268 CDG-MAN Economy Cost: 24,000 Flying Blue points plus US$48.60 Of all my flights, booking this flight was the most difficult. Having booked my flights into Paris, I quite reasonably thought that getting to Manchester from there would be a breeze. It was not! I first looked for reward...

Chapter 3: The Nature of MAN. Time for me to leave Paris. I caught a taxi to Terminal 2E. CDG isn’t my favourite airport (I don’t think it’s anyone’s favourite airport!) and as expected things weren’t totally clear about where I should go once I arrived, but I was pointed in the right direction...

Sometimes you just need days like that. I obviously did -- after lunch I crashed in bed and slept deeply for almost two hours. I obviously needed a rest!

A quick post on Parisian street art... These people gave me permission to photograph them plying their trade... If you've spent any time in Paris you've seen these. They're called "Space Invaders" and they're illegal, but beloved, pieces of street art from a mysterious artist known only as...

Today is my last day in Paris, and I decided to take it easy. Yes, that’s right: I’m not visiting any museum today. Maybe the fact that I am able to choose to not visit museums makes me more a “museum aficionado” rather than a “museum junkie”? In any case, I have a late-night flight to...

Interesting… my nephew wore a mask during our visit, not for health reasons but because he didn’t want to be recognised. Maybe also I’ll have to reassess my “undergraduate” comment. I’ll be sure to ask him about the cat-olympics!

Thanks for that recommendation. I have one more day in Paris and time for one more museum! I was intending to go to the Invalides but I've just been wondering whether that might be one war museum too many after my unexpected detour to the "Liberation of Paris" museum earlier today. I'll sleep...

Across the road from the (official) entrance to the Catacombs is a museum that I didn’t know existed: “The Museum of the Liberation of Paris”. You might not have ever realised this, but I’m a bit of a museum junkie… So I bid farewell to my family (more accurately, they fled from me with...

I didn't, but I'm one of the least observant human beings in existence... Interesting ... I was intending to visit the Pompidou Centre on this visit but chose not to becuase it's in the middle of a major major renovation. I would assume that they'll finish the Pompidou before getting started on...

Well, maybe you're like me: points rich but money poor. Or maybe you're also like me and you couldn't find Business class flights out of the country, given the short timeframe, so you've redeemed your points for Economy flights for some of the way. Or maybe you have a family and the only way you...