Neither of us wanted to get up on Sunday morning, but we had booked practice ice for 08:30, so we had to! It felt like an ordinary patch, as I grabbed some coffee from the hotel before we left, and then we were there with bananas, coffee and our music! Not too many of us on the patch, which was nice, and Hana found out how to use the music, so we were able to have one run-through to the music and then practice bits that weren't working too well.
Then back to the hotel for breakfast, after which the Swan Whisperer went down to the rink to watch the first half-hour of competition, and I stayed in the hotel to bling up and dress. He then came back and we checked out of the hotel, and went down to the rink. Emma won her free dance class, deservedly, although she didn't feel she'd skated very well. We didn't have any opposition, so it was a performance, and despite missing the spin - we can DO that bloody spin, why can't we do it in competition???? - we were gratified with a season's best. If only we'd got another 1/2 revolution on the spin it might even have been a PB. Ah well. The step sequence wasn't called, but they never are at Bronze. And looking at the video, I am horrified by how wide apart my feet tend to be, and how straight my knees - you can tell how badly I skate compared to the Swan Whisperer, who is very good these days. But oh dear, quote of the century from him: "It's all that work we do on edges! You would think a straight line would be faster, but actually, it's faster if you're on an edge!" It's only taken him eighteen years of skating to learn that..... !
Anyway, after the Silver and Gold free dances, always a treat to watch, it was time for the "Creation", highlight of which was Axel's rendition of "Gangnam-style", which was a hoot! There were some good performances in the women, too, notably Lisa's air-hostess.
Once everything was over, and we had changed back into street clothes, it was nearly 3:00 pm, and our train wasn't until 19:13, so we went back to the café and had the simply enormous brunch they serve at weekends for €20 a head - coffee and fruit juice and bread and jam or croissant, followed by a huge plate of scrambled eggs with a muffin or bagel, cheese, vegetables, salad, plus either smoked salmon and taramasalata or (our choice) bacon and sausages. As if that wasn't enough, you then got fruit salad, carrot cake and a chocolate cake - we couldn't face the latter, so the Swan Whisperer wrapped them up and we had them later.
Then we took the Metro into the city centre and sat in the sun on Pont Neuf for about half an hour until the quais underneath reopened to traffic and the peace and quiet was over, whereupon we got a bus from Chatelet up to the Gare du Nord, and it wasn't too early to check in. Train home not as nice as it could have been due to a stag party coming home - honestly, if they wanted to spend the whole weekend getting and being drunk, as they obviously did, why bother to go to Paris? They could have done that just as well at home! Anyway, they were relatively harmless, and I fell asleep so they didn't intrude! Then an uneventful trip home on the metro and bus. And unpacking, a bite to eat, and so to bed after a lovely weekend.
I don't think we'll be going away now until our big trip in June, but you never know....
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