Isn’t it a lovely name for your in-laws, your beautiful parents. Somehow it doesn’t carry any of the sting of “The In-Laws”.
My Father died about 15 years ago and my Mother about 7 so I had adopted my in-laws as my own.
Just before she died my Mother had come with us to America to my nephews wedding.She had thoroughly enjoyed this so we were determined to do something similar with Sile’s parents before it got too much for them.
They had come with us on holiday to Provence, and to the opera in Orange, in 1997 but that was “en famille” with Sile’s sister, brother-in law (read beau frere) and most of our (combined) children.
By the Summer of 2000 we were a much depleted holiday group, the children having decided to go on their own holidays, so it was just the two of us, Una and Martin, (beau frere and belle soeur) and les beaux parents who set of for a week to the little known Aveyron department of France. Our destination was a gite by a tiny village, La Fouillade, just south of the town of Villefranche de Rouergue.
We had passed through Rouergue on the way back from a holiday in Provence the previous year and had fallen in love with the area. It was in that wonderful state of being “undiscovered” and the Grande Place in Villefranche with its rock faced cathedral, by itself warranted a return visit. We thought it would be a nice quiet place for the beaux (but ancient) parents.
The whole holiday was in jeopardy for much of the spring as Sile’s mother (universally known by us as Mamo, from the Irish for Granny)had an operation to have an arthritic knee replaced quite close to our departure date and there was a question of whether she would be fit enough or not.
In the end she was, just.
Sile and I were elected to travel with the Beaux Parents as Martin and Una would already be in France, and arranged to meet us at the gite.
We were travelling by Air France to Toulouse with a change in Paris. Fired with the memory of previous Air France flights when disabled passengers had been given preferential and advanced passage from planes we booked a wheelchair for Mamo in Charles de Gaulle.
As our luck would have it they decided to reverse the previous procedures on this flight and made us wait until all the passengers had disembarked before they hydraulically lifted a by now fuming Mamo (“I am perfectly capable of walking you know!”) off the back door of the plane and on to a wheelchair.
The result of this was that we missed our connection and had to be put up overnight in Paris by Air France.

And here started our troubles.

Air France couldn’t have been nicer. They fed us in the nicest restaurant in the Airport and then packed us off by taxi to Hotel Bleu Marine which they assured us was nearby.
Would that the taxi driver was equally well informed, we could see it all right, behind the high fence of its enclave, the taxi driver joked , (yes a Parisian taxi driver joked!) that if we went around a certain roundabout for a fifth time he wouldn’t be able to charge us any fare.
After the fifth (and we weren’t paying anyway) we found our way and arrived at the cavernous foyer of the Bleu Marine.
The foyer was decorated with the usual assortment of lounging beaux monde who, while busy sipping their digestifs, watched the , now very bedraggled, Irish procession head towards the tiny lift which was of course at the very end of the foyer.
We packed in, just, with Daideo last, his back to the doors and creaked up to the fourth floor.
Arriving at the fourth the doors opened, no budge out of the beaux pere, I realised that he had his back to the open door and couldn’t see it.
“The door is open Daideo” “Where ?” says he, fair enough. But at that stage they were shutting and we made our inevitable journey back to the ground floor.
As the lift doors re-opened on the motley Irish some of the clientele in the hotel foyer actually stood up to better see this strange group of people who had evidently come in just to have spins up and down in the lift.

Eventually we made it to the bedrooms, aware that we had to get up at about 5.30 to get our re-scheduled flight to Toulouse.
The next disaster was likely our fault. We woke late, called the parents late, and all scrambled down to the taxi in a rush.
We were half way to the airport when Mamo clapped her hand over her mouth and said “ my teeth !” “they are still under the pillow.”
To have gone back to the hotel at that stage would have meant missing a second flight so we consoled Mamo as much as possible and headed to De Gaulle and onwards to Toulouse.
The next disaster had a certain surreal edge to it.
We hadn’t carried our “in hold” luggage with us as Air France had assured us they would be on our flight in the morning. As they were.
That is all but Sile’s and my large suitcase which held our entire clothes for the holiday. We watched at baggage carousel number 1 in vain. All the other luggage was there but our large red suitcase was missing.
At this stage there was some urgency to get the parents to the house and get at least a cup of tea inside Mamo. Sile sent me to sort out the suitcase while she collected the hired car. We still had a 100 kms or so to go to La Fouillade. Off she went while I went up to the nearest Air France official, to start the investigation of the missing suitcase.
Considering the quality of my French we understood each other well enough. He explained that I would have to go to a special department, high in the upper floors of the airport as that was the only place where I could lodge my complaint. He explained to me how to get there, and then disappeared towards a lift.
After some confusion I arrived at the relevant door. Knocked. “Entrez” said the man I had just spoken to! He showed no sign whatsoever that he had ever met me before!
Shook, I resolved to go on with my missing case story. I repeated to the man the same details I had already told him downstairs to which he reacted as if he had never heard them before. I was in his office for some time as I had to ring the owner of my Gite to get the postal address to which, my official promised, my case would be delivered within a few days.
I was still bothered and slightly bewildered later aswe left his office (together like old friends.)
Then he said something very peculiar, “Did you try Carousel 12?” “That is the trans- Atlantic carousel but sometimes……”
Intrigued I went with him to carousel 12 where, our large red suitcase was making its solo stately circuits.
Pathetically glad to be reunited with it I asked no further questions and fled to Sile and our hired car.

We found our way successfully out of the airport (we don’t always, we spent a long time trying to exit from Nice Airport once) and the first part of out journey was trouble free. The next disaster was perhaps to have greater consequences than any of the others. As a result of this particular mishap every time I drive a hired car in France Sile is convinced that we are going to hit the right hand ditch and recoils constantly from it.
While driving through the town of Gailliac, (brilliant red wine ) I mis-judged a high pavement and shredded both the tyre and the wheel on the right front.
We hurt no one but limped noisily down to the nearest parking place to check the damage. We then had a stroke of luck. We pulled in next to a French Camper van. Monsieur leapt out, grasped the situation immediately, took over the entire wheel changing, sent his wife to the van from where she returned with a basin of warm water, soap and towels so I could clean up and generally made us feel that “cead mile failte” should be a slogan for the French tourism board to use.
That was, to some extent the end of the disasters on the outward journey.

We found the gite which was lovely, all unspoiled in a meadow of wild flowers.

The family on the terrace at la Fouillade

The accommodation was very comfortable, the house holder had left us a large quantity of excellent Gailliac wine to get us going, the local boulangerie had good croissants, what more could one want?

Exploring the area was another bonus.
We had previously been to Albi which has a superb Cathedral and also some terrific Brocantes which kept me happy. Cordes sur Ciel, which truly justifies its name, we had seen from a distance but now got to explore.

Myself and my beau famille on the steps of Albi Cathedral
((N.B. Mamo’s white cloth bag)

Any notion that Mamo and Daideo would be left gently relaxing on the terrace of the gite was quickly dispelled as they proved ready, if not entirely able, to gallivant off with us on our explorations.
But all the time we were conscious of Mamo’s unease at her lack of teeth.
We rang the Blue Marine Hotel and yes, they had found the teeth but no they could not send them on. Could we not call in for them on the way back?
When we consulted the timetables this was impossible, so Sile, emboldened by her mothers unhappiness, rang the hotel again. She had decided to bribe, if necessary, whoever answered the phone to help us out.
Then we had our second stroke of luck.
The girl who answered this time was helpfulness itself.
Of course she would help. As she lived near Charles de Gaulle she would drop them there herself at the Air France office.
Sudden relief of all parties. (We afterwards sent her a silver Celtic necklace as a thank you)

And so, at the end of a most unusual holiday, we set off home.
The flight again involved us in a change in Paris. As we got towards De Gaulle Sile pointed out to me that the terminal for Ireland was some distance from the one we were going to arrive in at.
The decision was made, she would run on ahead to (hopefully) collect the teeth while I would bundle the parents along as fast as possible. (We had about an hour before our Dublin flight)
And bundling was indeed what I turned out to be at.
We discovered that the best means of transport between the two terminals was with a series of moving walkways.Both Sile’s parents use walking sticks and were a little unsteady even with these.Therefore a decision on how we would proceed was necessary. Another small matter was that
Mamo carried with her a white open topped cloth bag with all her presents for home which could not be let down or it would spill its contents all over the concourse.
This was how we eventually proceeded.
I carried both sticks and the cloth bag. I carefully ladled them both on to the walkway and lodged them on to a hand rail. Then, carrying the sticks and the bag, if I ran like hell I arrived before them at the end of the section of walkway.
There I could catch them gently as they were disgorged by walkway one and lodge them, again gently, on to the next one.
And so we proceeded over what must have been about six of these until we eventually arrived at our terminal and a disappointed looking Sile.
It turned out that there were dozens of Air France offices at the terminals.
Sile had tried several of them and all in vain. It looked like we were going to have to return without the teeth.
Now however the immediate priority was to get our flight for which several “last calls” had been delivered as we leap frogged along towards our check in desk.
As we approached the desk I saw a parcel sitting on the desk a small box, about the size for a set of teeth. My heart lifted, could it possibly be…
“Madame Ronayne” said the charming check in man “ I have a parcel for you”
The relief was immense.
Our reward for the whole holiday was on the flight back when Mamo opened her parcel and then, after a discreet bow of the head and a little adjusting, raised her head and graced us all with a magnificent smile.
Her first full smile for a week.

One additional moment on the holiday should be mentioned before I finish.
When we got into Toulouse airport on the way back we called into the Air France office to enquire about the whereabouts of the offices in De Gaulle.
There was a very upset Irish girl there with whom we started to talk.
It turned out her luggage had been mislaid and she was facing a holiday without clothes.
“Have you tried carousel 12 “ said I.
“That wasn’t the one our flight used”said she.
“Try it anyway” said I and pointed her towards it.