What I Did On My Holidays

By Adam Maxwell (Age 48 3/4)

We were lucky enough that daughter was finished early this year due to A-Levels being done and dusted so avoided the usual school holiday price gouge on the prices and had book a sojourn to Northern France.

ON THE TRAIN

We were left with a degree of trepidation given the shitshow that is the British Rail system. We needn’t have worried – it was the Eurostar that was the shitshow. More on that to come.

Leaving Northumberland we packed light with waterproofs ready for the few days we were expecting rain, stuck out our thumbs and flagged down a passing train to the capital city. No… not Kilchester… the other wretched hive of scum and villainy… London. It was as it always is… awful with pockets of delight you have to navigate to. We had tickets to see Cabarets. Since Mrs M and Maxwell Jr are both musical aficionados, I had it on good authority that the theatre had been done out to be a permanent Kit Kat Club (no, not the chocolate snack…). Utterly immersive and the performance? Phenomenal. 10/10 – no notes.

The following day… started with our train to Europe being cancelled due to thieves stealing stuff (the irony). Mrs M negotiated hard and we were granted safe passage on another train… running through the station…. down the platform and hopping… straight into an undeserved first class carriage.

Which was jolly nice and I got to work eating the free food straight away thank you very much.

Our first stop on the continent was Lille… the weather gods had clearly been out on a bender of Hunter S Thompson proportions and the promised sunny, cloudy, occasional shower forecast was sacrificed and replaced with 34 degree sizzle-weather.

We sought shade. We sought cheese. We sought La Piscine Musée d’art et d’industrie – a swimming pool with art deco interior that houses an art gallery that really had to be seen to be believed.

It was incredible. But we didn’t hang around too long because we had more destinations to tick off our itinerary so were soon back on the train and on our way to Amiens home of JULES VERNE!

Reader, the Maxwell clan went to his house and it was as bonkers and uplifting as you would imagine. My creative batteries had been lacking in juice for a while and plugging into the big fella’s house (replete with tower… why haven’t I got a tower in my house?) and seeing his writing space was a jolt of the purest inspiration.

But we couldn’t stick around because Paris was expecting us and I, for one, do not like to keep that dear lady waiting.

Hotel in Montmartre… tick.

Walking ten miles a day… tick.

Having dinner in the cafe from the movie Amelie… tick.

Even in the insane heat, Paris is one of my absolute favourite cities and it didn’t disappoint. Of course we ticked the essentials off… they’d rebuilt Notre Dame since our last visit which was exceedingly nice of them. I bought a ‘new’ collection of Bukowski’s poetry in Shakespeare and Company, an English-language bookshop on the left bank favoured in times gone by Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs and visited by non-beat writers from Anaïs Nin to Max Ernst…

Which Dadaist mention brings us neatly to the Dali museum… High on the hill in Montmartre it was no mere deception, it was packed with paintings, sculptures and an explosion of other assorted ideas that poured forth from the genius when he lived in the area and from throughout his career.

The Louvre… tick. There was art galore. There were paintings. Some featured horses. Some galloping. Some not-so galloping.

Eiffel Tower… tick.

Batobus… was like a floating greenhouse but we did it anyway!

Oh and here’s me on the stairs Keanu Reeves got thrown down from the Sacre Couer around 50 times in the climax of John Wick 4.

All this and so much more we crammed into our scorchingly hot time and then we high-tailed it back onto the Eurostar which was delayed (but not cancelled!) presumably due to a Tom Cruise impersonator flying a helicopter through the tunnel? I don’t know, I’m neither a heli-nut nor a rotorhead.

Careering back into Kings Cross we paused briefly to sneer at the capital (no, still not Kilchester. Very disappointing.) then jumped a train to Northumberland where the temperature was a mere 15 degrees cooler.

Exhausting? Not a bit of it.

The danger with going on holiday is that you take yourself with you. Fortunately, as you’re aware, I’m brilliant so that’s not really an issue. Also being exceedingly modest and having impeccable taste meant myself, Mrs M and Maxwell Jr all had an absolutely splendid time.

Oh and I took this little writing device with me… will probably save explanations for another email but suffice to say. Writing took place. The draft on the new book is up to 88 thousand words and it has a way to go so it’ll be by far the longest Kilchester book so far! I even stopped myself from getting distracted and writing a short story about a teenage Violet and Katie getting up to shenanigans, tomfoolery and, likely hijinks.

Though I may return to that in the not-too-distant. I suggest you go to all the places I mentioned and see them because they were great.