Decision time

 Still coming to terms with my voluntary redundancy I was sitting in Nora's garden when the words champagne and Reims were mentioned. "I'm booking today", said Nora.  Without deliberation I immediately said, "Can I come too?"  This had been on my bucket list for ages and I couldn't think of anyone better to go with than my two "Pilates buddies". Every Monday evening we sweat for an hour and then pop that cork -regardless whether it is Tesco's basic Ca Va or a special bottle of champagne to celebrate some important life event or simply Monday evening and why not! We giggle and fart our way through the Pilates programme. We are very proud of the fact that we now do the advanced version, although Jennifer our instructor on the DVD is even more smug with her perfect smile and flat stomach. (We do occasionally throw things at the television but so far it has survived.) We have a weigh in and my weight has stabilised over the three years in spite of the added sugar in the fizz.

The prospect of four days in the Champagne region during the week when I should have been teaching for my twentieth September in a row at college was so exciting. Thinking about all those poor colleagues trying to find suitable rooms, boxes of resources and lost students made me feel sorry for them for a few seconds then I moved on.

I volunteered to drive and picked up Nora and Anna and their good friend Sue at some ungodly hour to reach the tunnel for our crossing. M4 and M25 Monday morning don't go there! We live in an over populated area. I love the French Peage. The tunnel is also amazing but a tip -go straight to boarding -miss out on the coffee. We were bumped from our scheduled crossing both there and back as we were near the end of the queue.

The girls got the teacher treatment and were told to keep me "right, right, right" and watch the signs. They were severely reprimanded if they became distracted although it might have been pain I was seeing in their faces as I sang along to Abba, Beautiful South and the Bee Gees all the way to Reims.