lyon dispatch

hi everyone. nice photos.sorry to hear about all your ailments hugh and margaret.
here's a story about french bureaucracy (however you spell that). today i went to paris for a seminar, having got a cheapo ticket a three in the morning on the internet. for some reason my printer (not me) printed two copies of the way out and none of the return, and the return was rather important because i had a perf in lyon in the evening. in the gare de lyon 3 out of 3 official sncf people "could not help" me and, despite the fact that i had a reference number and they had about 100 computers and printers in their 'guichet' they just feigned ignorance and told me i had to find an internet cafe. this they told me was."..." and they waved their hands in a very french manner. so i sacrificed my planned relaxed coffee and croissant - drinking in the paris vibe - in favour of rushing round the bastille tring to find a cafe with cyber-access and weeping and leaving hysterical messages for julian. no luck so julian (who i hope is painting and not eating and drinking to much in preparation for the gastro experience i have lined up for him here) kindly cut, pasted and emailed me the thing and i picked it up in the seminar (nice sushi a bit rushed)lunch break. the really silly thing was that, when i so triumphantly produced the document which had caused so much distress in the train they told me it was not valid without the adverts for yahoo.com on it. yes the trains leave and arrive on time but there is a price to pay if you want to be understood as a human being.
meanwhile we had a terrible review for our little marionette opera which said that some of the violin playing was so bad it would turn milk sour. people get paid for writing things like that. our number 2 fiddle (who plays really well) was crying all the way through tonights performance. anyway must get beauty sleep as hub arrives tomorrow. we never speak to eachother any more in the evenings as we are both so busy bolgging you. is this a good thing? love, ruthxxxx