Quintessentially Dutch

Mr Gnome has returned from a brief visit to the Netherlands buzzing with enthusiasm for our charming neighbours across the North Sea.

He relished, in no particular order:

• the people: dignified, kindly, helpful and healthy-looking - must be all that...
• cycling: travel by bike is totally built in to the the Dutch transport system, the whole culture, in fact. Of course, geography helps. But we could learn so much from our neighbours
• applegebak: not exactly apple pie. Deeper, fuller, richer. Omnipresent. Lekker!
• the Mauritshuis Museum in Den Haag. A treasure box on three floors of a grand, but not overwhelming, seventeenth-century mansion, housing some of the greatest works of the Dutch 'golden age': Rembrandt's 'Anatomy Lesson' and Vermeer's 'The Girl with a Pearl Earring'
• trains: Mr Gnome couldn't get enough of the zippy doubledecker commuter trains
• Delft and Leiden: what could be more beguiling than wandering the streets of these university cities on a crisp, autumnal day?
• Hortus Botanicus: the University of Leiden's ancient botanical gardens were a serendipitous discovery. Glorious. And free - such a bonus for a Euro-strapped gnome.

Is Paris burning?

How ripping to be barreling to Paris in the hyper-efficient comfort of the Eurostar train.

Two hours and twenty minutes from the faux-gothic splendor of St Pancras to the marginally less splendid Gare du Nord.

Well, it should have taken that length of time. Ten minutes before we were due to buffer-nudge our destination, the train stopped.

There was a trackside fire in the Saint Denys district and we were obliged to await the ministrations of the Parisian pompiers to extinguish the blaze.

The delay lasted a good ninety minutes, causing Mr Gnome and I to miss the 'Suprise!' element of the 'surprise' fiftieth birthday to which we were heading.

Bonjour tristesse?

Well, not really. Both gnome and human stiffened their upper lips and sat it out, pluckily. Having a substantial AS Byatt to hand was a indeed a boon.

The Eurostar staff could not have been more calmly professional and communicative, offering updates every ten minutes - and opening external doors to cool us down. The air-conditioning stopped along with the train.

Gnome and Human arrived at the party dramatically (two hours and fifteen minutes) en retard.

Fortunatlely, the birthday boy knew nothing of our delay as he wasn't aware we had been invited in the first place. So our entrance was not without its element of eclat. Satisfying.

And the cloud had an argent lining: our next Eurostar trip will carry a 50% compensatory reduction.

Hurrah!

Grand plaisir

Blessedly blasé re most worries, Mr Gnome is a reluctant flyer.

Imagine then the intensity of his pleasure as a spanking new Eurostar train whooshed him from London to Paris in a dizzying two hours and thirty minutes.

(Train - terra firma. Plane - terror-former.)

The journey would have been fifteen minutes shorter had we not been obliged to pass through 'Le Tunnel' at half speed - a consequence of the recent, er, 'incident'.

Leaden English skies dissolved and insouciant Gallic sunshine took over. Hurrah!

More Parisian posts shortly....

Free Nelson Bundela

I so wanted her to shut up, the fair-haired, power-suited young woman opposite me on the train. Two phones. Too loud. Too much.

Over the course of several calls my fellow passengers and I piece together the sheer awfulness of her day - her second day in her first job after university, working for a big-name international firm of accountants.

In brief: I'm based in Edinburgh. I flew to Birmingham this morning for an appointment in Coventry. I was supposed to fly back to Edinburgh this evening. But I missed my train connection to the airport because of a taxi driver with a dodgy tom-tom.

(Er, tom-tom? Techno-savvy readers will have grasped, unlike moi, that a Tom-tom is a type of satellite navigation device.)

This is a bad thing because I have to join a bunch of new colleagues at Edinburgh Airport early tomorrow morning so that we can all fly down to London for a high-level conference at Windsor. It's an accountant thing.

But now I'm heading south, not north, to High Wycombe, where my kind grandfather will meet me so that I can stay the night with him and Granny, prior to one of them driving me to Windsor tomorrow.

This is good because I'll have a bed. But also bad because I'll be up half the night washing and drying my clothes. All I have is what I'm wearing right now.

Further bad thing: my boss has resigned and skidaddled without giving me names or conatct info of any of the people who'll be at the airport tomorrow morning wondering why I'm not there. Can things get worse? Oh, yes.

There's Nelson.

Nelson is in my flat in Edinburgh, awaiting my return tonight. Without me, he may die. So I have to phone a friend, and my letting agent. Friend will kindly collect flat key and go and check that Nelson is OK, ensuring that he is fed and watered.

I've enough stress in my life without having the death of a six-month-old rabbit on my conscience.

And it's not as if Nelson's short life has been angst-free.

Until four weeks ago Nelson was Tilly. My boyfriend returned from South Africa, took one look at the bunny and - whoosh - instant gender re-assignment, with a nod to the great Mandela in the re-naming.

I'm SO unlucky - and, yes, I really was born on Friday the thirteenth.

Hmm.

Unlucky? With kind grandparents on hand to ferry and accommodate? With a chum to rescue Nelson? With a flat in Edinburgh's New Town? With a boyfriend who can sex a rabbit at ten paces?

Please.

By this stage the train is nearing my destination and, to my surprise, irritation has long since morphed into rapt attention. I SO don't want her to stop.

Something to do with the power of story, perhaps?

What started as merely an irritating voice has become a real young woman who's in a bit of a pickle - and a bunny with gender issues.

Fellow-passengers are offering advice and suggestions. Could you call your head office? Call the airport to page your colleagues? Call the conference venue?

Leaving the train at LS, I murmur: 'Goodbye. I hope everything works out for you and Nelson.'

Later I find myself saying a wee prayer for them.

Hear and now

Tootling home yesterday from a wedding in wet south Wales and letting the train take the strain.

Two gentlemen my age board at Cardiff and sit at the table section that I've previously had to myself.

They chat animatedly to one another using signing.

Next stop Newport, where train is flooded with English football fans who are male, loud and very well tanked up..

They fill the three seats across the aisle from us, until then occupied by a lone young woman.

They greet her and seem to think that the manner in which they address her is charming in a breezily laddish way. It's not. She politely extricates herself and moves elsewhere.

A fan asks one of my seat companions to move over so that he can sit across the aisle from his chums. Fan eventually realises that the gentleman is deaf and is reluctant to move because he will no longer be seated directly opposite the friend with whom he's signing.

Anyway, the gentleman shrugs, smiles and makes the requested move.

Journey continues. Fans discuss the match, with occasional forays into their work and their love lives. All at high volume and larded with the inevitable f-word.

We dip into the Severn Tunnel, the din unabated.

My companion opposite must have picked up my vibe. He is busy with his phone, keying in a message. Then he grins at me, and holds up the phone, displaying the message shown above.

We bond.

Carpe diem

February brings day after day of warm, tranquil, late summer weather - perfect for a hiking holiday.

Well, it does if you're fortunate enough to be in New Zealand, where I spent the whole of February 2003.

Here we are high up with Mount Cooke behind us - a motley bunch of 'trampers' (kiwi for 'hikers'), including three nurses, a doctor, a psychiatrist, a fireman, a financial analyst and a town planner.

I'm sure they were all reassured to know that I was poised to help if any of them experienced a punctuation crisis.

Memories of our travels in South Island haven't faded - glaciers, forests, mountains, beaches, wilderness, vineyards, space, beauty.

You haven't been there? If you possibly, possibly can - do go. You'll never regret it.

The invitation to make the journey came from my friend David (pictured, kneeling right), who was celebrating his remission following treatment for leukemia.

He relished every moment of our travels, absorbing the sights and sounds of that beautiful place with keen enjoyment.

David seized the day.
David died at the end of May 2006. A truly wonderful friend.