"Hideously early check-in for a 9.20 flight from Luton airport. Fortunately, we'd all left plenty of time to get to Luton - especially fortunate for Andy whose car broke down on the way to the airport! He managed to hitch a ride to the airport, checked in, got a taxi back to his car, waited for the AA (and his wife), then took the same taxi back to the airport. Only Andy!

Our flight was somewhat behind schedule, and we didn't quite realise how long it would take for us to get from Paris airport across to Radio France which is right over near the Eiffel Tower. We ended up being nearly an hour late - oops! Fortunately, Brad Lubman was conducting, so he wasn't particularly worried, and what was left of the rehearsal was fine.

After a bit of early evening shopping, we all headed up to Châtelet for dinner, to Gerry & Andy's favourite restaurant - which was shut. So, we went to another down the same street - very French, and not bad at all.

It did seem totally bonkers that we were staying near Radio France, as the next day's rehearsals, and the concert the following day, were all at the Cité which couldn't be further across Paris if it tried. So, we were up almost as early the 2nd day just to get to the rehearsal. The tube journey took over an hour! Still, the orchestra was really excellent, the people were delightfully friendly, and the extra percussion players were outstanding. There were one or two (sadly crucial) exceptions to the standard, but all in all both pieces were sounding very good. We tried to calm Brad down a little bit after he tried to set an Olympic speed record in the first movement of You Are (Variations). Fortunately, it was somewhat steadier in the performance.

In the middle of the 2-session rehearsal day, Amy, Gerry, Andy and I went across the road to a café for a typically French lunch, but were eventually smoked out and ended up back in the restaurant at the Cité for coffee and cake. Surely there'll be a smoking ban in French bars one of these days....that would be nice.

Anyway, the concert finally came around and all went well. The only downside was the seemingly endless journey back across Paris on the underground (see photos above). We got back to our station at about 11.30pm, ravenously hungry having had no dinner. The light at the end of the tunnel came courtesy of the restaurant at the end of our street. They very kindly let us in at that late hour and agreed to knock up a pizza or 6 - and they were delicious!

Heather sewing

We downed lots of wine, and Heather sewed up a hole in Andy's jumper - like you do at midnight in a pizza joint!"

Micaela