Goodmans Hotel

After that climax the party slowly wound down. At half past three we began to ask people if they would like to share taxis home with other guests, and arranged cabs for those who did. Others took the hint that the time had come to leave, and by half past four less than a dozen determined revellers remained. We stopped the music. The garden centre manager volunteered to stay until the last of the hangers on departed, allowing Tom and me to go to bed, and we tiptoed up past the Geordies' rooms to the second floor for a few hours' sleep among the clutter of furniture, too exhausted to make love.

Two weeks after the party a letter arrived from France with the news that Andrew's travels had been curtailed by another subarachnoid haemorrhage. He had been admitted to hospital in Montpelier and, following treatment, transferred to the Grand Hotel de Luzenac in the Pyrenees, one of those French spa establishments that is a mixture of hotel, nursing home and medical centre.

When, on my fourth attempt, the staff allowed me to speak to him by 'phone, in a frail voice he told me he was feeling much better but was not fit to travel. The hotel had a fine conservatory where he spent much of the day, and he said he would love to see us if there was any possibility of our getting away.

Arranging cover at the hotel for a few days was not too difficult, but flights to Toulouse were fully booked and we had to fly to Marseille, where we would have to hire a car to drive to the Grand Hotel de Luzenac.

After we landed, going through the airport checks and picking up the car took over an hour and a half. I drove us out of the airport, but Tom was soon keen to experience the novelty of driving on the right and going anti-clockwise around roundabouts and took over the driving.

Our plan was to break the journey with an overnight stay in Montpelier, and on the way passed vineyards and shallow expanses of water where pink flamingoes waded. When we arrived we found a regional trade fair in progress and most of the hotels were full. The Tourist Information Office eventually located a large room with three beds in a hotel three kilometres from the centre, and we let ourselves be persuaded that three of us sharing a hotel room for one night would not be too great a hardship.

After freshening up we drove the three kilometres back into town, parked the car in an underground car park and joined the crowd strolling around, absorbing the atmosphere of Montpellier's busy streets and admiring attractive well-made goods in shop windows. We sat down for a drink at a café with a great block of tables spreading out into the main square. Smartly dressed people, strolling or hurrying, made their way across in all directions, and we slipped briefly into a holiday mood. Neither Tom nor I wanted to abstain from alcohol that evening and in order to have aperitifs and drink wine with our meal we drove back to the hotel to eat.