Talk about blinkered, I have my parent head on when I accompany Youngest Child to France for her university exchange semester, and miss the top ten things to do in Lille. Never mind cruising the old town streets in a vintage Citroen, visiting the Palais des Beaux-Arts, sitting outside cafes chewing croissants, I spend most of my two-night trip in a discount supermarket searching for bedding and helping heave furniture into an arrangement to her liking. “No, we need that cheese I like,” she says, dragging me away from an intriguing display of oozing truckles to a stack of vacuum packed grated cheddar. Mercifully the flat she’s found is clean and warm (energy bills being half of the cost here, how I bask) and the other occupants friendly, but we’re sans bedding. “Cos of bugs,” she says. There goes my dream of browsing boulangeries. Then there’s the tube and the main rule is when everyone stampedes, it’s head down, elbows out and run. Hesitate, like we did and you’re trapped in an empty carriage hurtling into a dark tunnel where it will come to a halt and you’ll silent scream until it eventually returns you to the station. No idea why. “Don’t wonder, run!” says Youngest, immediately up to speed next time round, and dragging me by my hood. Later while she’s checking out the microwaves in the university foyer through the window behind them I spot a sign for the ‘piscine”. “Look, a swimming pool, for after lectures,” I say. “Hmmm. We need tupperware.” With Youngest happy, apart from the tragic realisation she’s forgotten her favourite eyebrow spoolie, after my return planes, trains, automobiles journey home she phones the empty nest. “Guess what? We did a tour, the old town, the sights. It was amazing. You’d have liked it. France has had A LOT. There were two world wars and there was an important guy… em…” “Napoleon?” No, Burgundy, and that was a good time, and there are beautiful buildings and cobbled streets and galleries, and, oh, that swimming pool is a museum.” (According to Google "the most beautiful swimming pool in France", an art deco affair, now a “magical” museum displaying ceramics and textiles. Sob.) “OK, when can I come back and see it all?” “Well my friends are all coming out, so it’s going to be busy. I’ll let you know...” Janet Christie's Mum's the Word - why are films three hours long?
