4am revisited

*bleep* *bleep* *bleep*

Up again at 4am to take the muppet Fred to Geneva airport after the previous fiasco of him ignoring his alarm and missing the flight. He managed to get to the airport bang on time, with enough to spare to pick up a few bits and bobs through duty-free as well. Funky.

Things of note from the journey:

1) Today's trip was sponsored by "Dark Dog" energy drink. Any drink with the words "dark" and "dog" in the name must be seen as dangerous and not to be taken lightly. We didn't take them lightly either - 3 cans apiece to help the journey along. We went from being half-asleep to acting like a pair of ADHD teenagers in just under 0.03 seconds. Conversation flowed thereafter.

2) Fred's first name isn't Fred (I knew this already). In fact his first name is Ahmad. His second name isn't Fred either - it's Ferad. His surname is unpronouncable. This is why he is called Fred.

3) French drivers will drive at exactly the same speed and ferocity despite any one of low visibility, darkness, rain, fog, sleet and wind. They will drive at the same velocity even if all of these factors are present.

4) The Swiss are encouraged to take note of registration numbers of excessively speeding vehicles and report them to the authorities. There's some sort of bonus for doing this apparently. Yes, that was my first thought too - bastards.

5) French motorway toll booth clerks are just as chirpy at 5am as they are at 5pm. For a race of people who sit in cafes sipping their pastis a l'eau whilst muttering "you eenglish peoples make my ass tweetch" they are surprisingly chirpy when it comes to jobs like that.

6) Dark Dog lasts for a long time.

4am and waiting

I said I'd take Fred to Geneva airport this morning at 5am for his flight to Morocco and his pre-season holiday. I got up at 4am and had a bath and something to eat, struggled into various random items of clothing then set off to pick him up from a centrally agreed point in Les Houches.

I was kicking myself actually, feeling really tired even though I'd gone to bed really early the night before. Anyway I sat in our designated meeting place at 4.50am rubbing the sleep from my eyes. At 5.15am I made my first call to his mobile but no luck. It just rang out. I tried every 10 minutes for the next hour but each time it just went to voicemail. Dangit. By 6am I was starting to get really worried. I'd driven around Houches in the hope of spotting him if his car had broken down on the way in or something. Still no luck.

I ended up driving the long way round to Vaudagne, the small mountain village where he lives - 20 minutes of narrow, winding, snowy mountain road. All the time keeping an eye out for signs of an accident - in case he'd slipped off the road or something. The easy route to his place was roadworked and so had to detour around. I've got to say I was pretty nervous - being tired and with scarily difficult driving conditions all the while worried in case Fred had had an accident. I pitched up to his place but there were no lights on and his car was in the driveway, but there was still no response on his phone and the front door was locked.

By this stage I was shattered. I'd been driving and waiting around for over an hour and a half and I figured that I'd done all I really could have short of breaking into his house. Besides, I'd tried ringing everyone up (his housemates, etc) with no success either. It was at the stage where he'd have missed his flight if we left together and maybe he'd grabbed a lift with someone else or something and put his phone in his hold luggage?

Well I eventually slid back under the sheets at 7am and woke up at 9 with a sleepy, annoyed Fred saying that his phone alarm hadn't woken him up and neither had all the missed calls! At least he was safe and well though! He managed to book another flight for Thursday so I guess we'll go through it all again then!

The boy owes me now though. Big time!

A bluebird transfer from Geneva

This was the view of Mont Blanc coming into the valley from Geneva the other day on a transfer. I love it - it's like the perfect start to a holiday and it makes me smile to hear the excited chattering and people asking the endless questions. I guess if I can make the start of their break as perfect as possible then hopefully it'll be something they remember for years to come and smile.