What's Next?

So - Paris, seven years ago, 'the hooker's room'.
Or the Honeymoon Suite, as I suspect we're both silently trying to think of it.
If I'm honest, day three was relatively uneventful - I mean, sure, d flashed the kichen commis, when opening the curtains revealed our room was on a courtyard-cum-outdoor-larder, but hey, he went away happy, she laughed, I did about three minutes of schtick based on comedy overreaction, and the day moved on. Not terribly far, to be sure, cos a) this was out honeymoon, whered'ya want it to go?, b) there was a gorgeous little patisserie at the end of our street, and c) I'm a wicked, shallow man, so using points a and b to my consummate advantage was just second nature to me.

When it came time to finally stagger, bleary and honeymooned within an inch of our lives, or at least within an inch of serious chafing, we eschewed French food altogether - they hadn't been kind to us - and went back to our friendly Chinese place. Hey, don't judge - our nice Chinese lady remembered us, and smiled - which made her precious and rare in Paris.

The next morning was 'get le Hell out of Dodge' day, but let me just say there was still some pastry left, so we were a little late with the getting of out. We got to Gare Du Nord train station, and the subway passes that our first, sweet, helpful French friend had helped us get...simply stopped working. for all we knew, they were entirely supposed to do that, but that didn't really help us at the something-like-five-feet-high barriers we encountered.
"Well..." I said. "This is a pickle."
It was a particular pickle because, after the Eiffel Tower a couple of days earlier, we'd travelled around on one of the ubiquitous double-decker tour buses, and spotted the French Police. Possibly the only police force on the planet to be able to use bikes and not look like an enormous bag of douches. In fact, they looked proper and threatening, with insane calf muscles and big sticks.
"What?" said d. "You think...?"
We shared an image without actually verbalising it (Hey, we were married now, it was allowed). The image was of one or other of us straddling the barrier and alarms and sirens going off, and a bunch of these well-hard bastards dropping in on ropes and riding up on their hard-bastard bikes and beating us around the head and neck with their big big big sticks.
I checked my watch. "We're soooo gonna miss our plane," I said.
"Right," said d,  clambering over the barrier while I was still thinking about it. I think too much about most things, in case you hadn't noticed. In fact, as she slid over the barrier, I winced, actually expecting the alarms and the ropes and the big big sticks. When they didn't come, I was actually surprised. Still, after about five seconds of nada, I ran to the baggage gate and tried to slide our suitcase through.

Probably worth mentioning at this point that our suitcase was the size of Belgium. I tried to push it through, and it was like something out of  a Jim Carrey movie - my feet moved, the case didn't, and physics took a little vacation. Then d came to help, and the case moved. I just about managed to move with it and not fall on my face. I struggled my fat ass over the barrier, like a balloon full of pudding. And on we went, running almost as if the gendarmes really were cycling after us. There was a smallish incident where d was nearly forced to eviscerate a deeply deeply Parisian toilet attendant, but basically it was all about the running. We skidded our asses on the plane just as it was about to give us up for dead from pastry overdose. Our seats had been given away. d broke out her 'but it's our honeymoon' eyes and quivering lip, and they found us two single seats, separated by pretty much a plane-length. Although it's possible that was just my imagination of how far away from her I was. Certainly, if it were true, I wouldn't remember this next bit - a stewardess came and asked for her bag.

This didn't seem entirely normal, so d was a little reticent about giving it up.
"Don't worry," said the stewardess with a wink.
She took it away, and there was a tense few minutes where - again without a word exchanged - we both had the same vision, of one of those people who pretend to be doctors and perform all sorts of complex surgeries, only in this case she'd decided to go into the stewardessing business...probably for the air miles.

Thankfully though, she came back a few minutes later, the bag bulging suspiciously.
"Our gift to you," she said, giving the bag back. Turned out the stewardesses had felt bad at our being separated on our honeymoon, so they'd filled d's handbag with those half-bottles of champagne you can get on a flight. Now all we had to do was smuggle it through the "Nothing To Declare" aisle at Heathrow - which I have to say, my new wife accomplished with an applomb which shouldn't by now have surprised or unnerved me, but still managed to do a little of both - and head home.

When we walked through our own front door, the first time as married people, the first thing that hit us was the quiet. The flat hadn't been quiet at all for that last week before we'd left it the last time, as livers-in-well-intentioned-sin - our friends the Whites had come over from the States with their three year old son and his some-odd month-old brother. The younger son had screamed his poor demented, highly confused and jetlagged lungs out almost constantly through the night for a week. The elder son had come down with a terrifying fever - almost instantaneously, as it happened, in St James' Park one day. And, as I may have mentioned a couple of days ago, there was still so much to do that we hadn't experienced quiet at home...in fact, now that I think about it, ever, since d had arrived with a down-counting clock to the wedding.

"So..." said d, looking around our small, unimpressive kitchen. "What's next?"