This is Katy sitting at a cafe opposite Lille Station. We had got up at 6.30 in the morning in Leyton, risked the rush hour traffic, and driven to Dover, arriving about half an hour before the boat left for Calais. We saw a little bit of Callais and then jumped on a train for Lille. At Lille we had time to have a rather nice pizza and then had to rush to get the train for Marseille.

We caught it by the skin of our teeth and then had a fairly uncomfortable ride. Like all the trains we rode on in France there were no proper buffet facilities. We hadn’t managed to buy a bottle of wine in Lisle, but Katy managed to sweet talk the sleeper car attendant into getting us a couple of bottles of beer each.

At about 11.30 pm the train came to a halt in a station and sat there for about an hour. We were later told that a body had been found on the tracks.