Mercury in Retrograde

25 Nov 2012: I was only introduced to this cosmic phenomenon known as ‘Mercury in Retrograde’ not so long ago. In layman’s terms, I believe this refers to the rhythm of Mercury causing havoc to our routines and plans here on Earth, engendering frustrations and plenty of disappointments. And it’s not been difficult at all to embrace this concept, however heebiejeebie it may sound – isn’t it wonderful when you are given an excuse to lay the blame on someone else when things do not go according to plan? We should well have checked the cosmic calendar before planning this trip to Bourgogne and Bordeaux. I have never had a good experience when it comes to air transport in France, and on this jinxed trip with Mercury in Retrograde, the angst had been taken to a new high!


We thought we had allowed plenty of time to get from the Côte d’Or to Lyon’s Saint Exupéry airport for our flight to Bordeaux. Friends of our would be familiar with our infamous penchant for leaving a touch too late from a certain domaine in Morey Saint Denis and putting ourselves in situations where my eyes would be darting between the speedometer and the clock every few minutes, with literally seconds to spare at the departure gate. This time we arrived at exactly one hour before the flight! We even found time to fill up the tank. I then left Richard with our rather voluminous luggage at the terminal while I returned the hired car. When I got back to the terminal, he was nowhere to be found and could not be contacted because he decided to embark on a long conference call while I was returning the car. Déjà -vu! He finally emerged 30 minutes later, still with one hand on the phone and the other pushing the heavy trolley. World War III about to break out! When we finally got to the luggage drop off counter, we had one of those trained-to-be-unhelpful Air France staff who told us that we had to remove some weight from one of our suitcases. The flight was leaving in about 30 minutes – a fact that totally escaped her! We had nowhere to put the excessive luggage and I was not going to use the transparent bin liner that she produced to put the extra bottles of wine that we had picked up in Bourgogne. After a vigorous exercise of manic unpacking and repacking, we were told that we could choose to pay excess baggage penalty instead of laying on this airport drama for all to witness – an important detail that somehow she decided to omit from the beginning. 20 whole minutes wasted on this futile exercise! I guess for this Air France staff, her only responsibility was to check in our luggage, anything else was none of her concern, least our departure time and our anxious looks. Service more fitting for the civil service! We ran like maniacs to the customs control area to find ourselves joining a very long queue. At least we found one airport staff who sympathized with us and let us jump the queue and speed through the hand luggage checking process. We arrived at the departure gate, 2 minutes before scheduled departure! More déjà-vu! The glass of Pol Roger at the Cordeillan-Bages Hotel in Bordeaux was the most beautiful glass of champagne I had had for a long time! Lesson learnt: Avoid airports in France if you can! (Tip: Stop over at Troisgros for a gourmand evening to break up the 7 hour drive between Bourgogne and Bordeaux!)

Well, Mercury still in Retrograde for our second flight this week. This time it was the 07:20 flight from Bordeaux to Paris. First of all, the hotel (Le Saint James) totally forgot about our wake-up call. So we left half an hour later than we should have! We stupidly had not bothered to look up the map on how to get to Merignac Airport – if we had gone the wrong way on the Rocade, it would be an hour before we were to find it. Instead, I thought I would rely on the SatNav which had so far worked rather well for us during our stay in Bordeaux, occasionally taking us along some less obvious routes. As I didn’t have the street name for the airport, I just typed in ‘Merignac’, expecting that a sign for the airport would clearly present itself along the way. We got suspiciously worried when the SatNav instead of leading us onto the Rocade, took us into the sleepy city of Bordeaux, and threatened to guide us further into the heart of the city, amongst the city’s UNESCO World Heritage listed monuments! It’s already 6:25 am and the flight is less than an hour away! Panic began to set in……followed by anguish……distress….and suddenly inspiration came when we spotted a taxi waiting at the taxi rank! Richard negotiated to pay the taxi driver to lead us to the airport, with us and our huge amount of luggage, following in our hired car behind. The taxi driver was quick to sense our anguish and we whizzed off at a good pace to the airport. 06:50 – arrival at airport. Just enough time to return the hired car and check in (with the usual amount of fuss over luggage weight)……what a nightmare it has been! It was hard to believe that we actually made it!

Mercury in Retrograde – this has never been more real! I will definitely consult the calendar before our next trip!