My hopelessly romantic gentleman friend Craig (http://www.justgiving.com/craigjones_londonmarathon - ahem, ahem) is earning himself an impressive number of Brownie points by whisking me off to Paris in a couple of weeks. An idea not at all inspired by the fact that he got his hands on an astonishingly cheap 2-for-1 deal on Eurostar (sorry darling. Busted).

But one of the stipulations of this deal was that we couldn't catch the train from London, and would have to go to one of the smaller stations, out in the sticks. And as our train departs at an indecently early hour, we need to book ourselves into a B&B near the station rather than risk getting there from London at stupid o'clock in the morning.

So, a few clicks of the mouse later, I found a very charming looking place, and phoned them up just now:

*ring ring*
*ring ring*

(slightly flustered, unplaceable European accent ) " 'ello, ***** guest 'ouse?"

"Oh hello, I was wondering if you might have a double room available for the night of February 14th?"

(utterly confused ) "Eh .... I uh .... I donno .. eh ...ken you col me beck in twenny minnee?"

"Of course. Bye bye."

"Eh.. bye."

......Okaaaaay.

I'm not entirely convinced I didn't just speak to someone who stowed away on top of a Eurostar train and is now planning his next move from behind the reception desk of a sleepy countryside B&B.