"Oh you look so beautiful tonight"

French lyrics abandoned for one night only, not because I don't have any (ye of little faith!) but because I really wanted that particularly apt choice which is taken from U2's "City of blinding lights".
All will be revealed.

Oh people it's all sooooo good!

Make yourselves comfy for I have much to say. I'll fill you in over what's been going on for the last week but first I need to talk about tonight.

Tonight has been the best night I have ever spent in my own company. I know I'm prone to exaggeration & I know I've a tendency to overdo the superlatives but what my eyes have witnessed tonight has been truly spectacular, utterly breathtaking & completely life affirming.

If Lyon hadn't already become my favourite place I've ever visited, it is now.
Tonight I saw this marvelous city in, quite literally, a new light.
The 8th of December sees the start of a four day event in Lyon called...

I really don't know how to even start describing it!
In a nutshell the city becomes a giant light show. The wonderful buildings I've already shown you become canvasses & the lights are the brushes & paints. Massive projections beamed onto the facades of these special pieces of architecture. My evening started in earnest in Bellacour at about 6pm. At Bellacour there is a massive stencil type thing laid out on the ground which is slowly being filled up with little candles in small glasses. These are put into place by the Lyonnais & visitors who are encouraged to take part. There was a very tangible feeling of local pride tonight & ,by golly, they have every right to be proud. The streets were absolutely heaving with people, tens (maybe even hundreds) of thousands of folk all shuffling about & taking in the jaw-dropping sights. I took loads of pictures tonight but, alas, most of them are crap. Here's a couple of decent-ish ones that I took in Bellacour:
I know it's all blurry (shaky bloody hands!) but look at the green & red glow on the trees & see the Fourviere up atop the hill there.


That thing is bloody colossal, I tell thee.

I then set off towards Vieux Lyon across the Saone. Oh, it really did take my breath away. On the front of the Cathedral de Saint Jean were images of people & birds moving around, the hill that the Fourviere sits atop was glowly from red to blue to white to green to purple & the Fourviere was bathed in multicoloured lights aswell to staggering effect, with great beams of light shooting out into the night sky. Again, my photo's don't do it an ounce of justice but I seriously believe that no camera could capture the wonderment of the scene. It was sex for the eyes.

That charming tree was seen as I crossed over the river to the cathedral. There were no lights on the cathedral at that time but there was some sort of service going on. When it ended lots of people came out of the church holding little paper lanterns which had a real flame burning away. I suspect that they had to carry them up to the Fourviere. One little girl of about 6 or 7 looked so delightfully thrilled as she marched past me, lantern in one hand & mum's hand in the other. Cheesy as it may sound, she was a perfect picture of the innocence & purity of childhood. It made me melt.

With weary legs it was time for a little refueling so I made my way through the crowds that were now filling up the narrow, cobbled streets of the old town to The Smoking Dog, an English pub that Le Grand Gaffer introduced me to. I was in there last night laughing at Manchester United actually (Sorry LB), but that's another story.
I had a couple of pints of Stella, a couple of fags & a good old nose through a copy of today's Sun. I miss reading the paper, so that was kinda cool. Watered but not fed, I wandered back up towards the Cathedral, stopping off in the rather ace Indian restaurant that I & some colleagues have become semi-regulars at. The very lovable waiter Geiger (he cracks me up) recognised me & sat me down with a beer. I then proceeded to consume the hottest Chicken Tikka Masala I've ever had. My eyes were proper watering but it was very yummy.

When I got back to the cathedral they had started doing lights on it.

It was great to behold but I wanted to get to the city hall (y'know, where the photo of me in front of the statue/fountain is) as the girl's at the Coldplay gig had told me that was the place to be.
I got the Metro to Bellacour & then walked up to the place. On my way there was another church that I'd not seen before. See...

Sadly I got to the place I wanted to be a few seconds to late & was confronted by a wall of policemen stopping anyone else from joining the packed masses. However I still managed to see some of the show. There were 3 or 4 people suspended on wires hanging from the city hall & they were dressed all in black but covered in lots of lightbulbs, in addition to those guys the building was made to look like it was on fire via some dazzling pyrotechnics.




Again I must apologise for the quality of the photo but as you can see I was some distance from the building.

By now the crowds were enormous & it became quite similar to being a massive gig with all the pushing & shoving.
Anyway time had beaten me & it was time to go back to work.

Yup, you read it right, work!

See the trouble with the Fete des Lumieres is that for the opening night every single hotel room in the city of Lyon has been booked up for months. No room at the inn for Monsieur Le Flash. Let me talk you through my day & the day ahead of me. It's now 1.45am, by the way.
I awoke this morning at 6am feeling a little groggy from a second consecutive night of drunken football watching, checked out of the hotel & came to work. I worked till 5.30pm when I went into the city. Since I've been here there has been a need for me to work at least one night with the nightshift. I figured has I had nowhere to stay that tonight would be ideal. And so it has. It's given me the chance to blog for a start. I'll have to work through till lunchtime as I can't check back into the hotel till Noon. Sleep? It's for girls & southerners, right?

Before moving on to other matters I'd just like to reiterate that I have had a superb, awe-inspiring night. The fact that it has been pissing it down most of the night, nor the fact that my colleagues phone wouldn't receive my call & I had to walk 2 miles in the torrential rain from the station to the plant, not even the car that drove through a puddle next to me during that walk & soaked me to the skin could dampen my spirits. I feel very much alive.

And guess what?
It gets better.

Ever since they took over my place of work I've had a love/hate relationship with my company. They've sometimes been real shitbags to work for but on the other hand I have a lot to thank them for, such as a week in the States back in 2000 & my current living it up in Lyon status. They've really gone one better now. Nice's boss, a smashing fella known here as Round The Chops, has organised a real treat. Without my knowledge (until yesterday) he's sorted it for Nice to come to visit me, here in Lyon, this weekend! She'll be here in about 18 hours!!
How goddamn-chuffing-hypercool is that???

And the Fete des Lumieres continues all over the weekend, so Nice can share the wonderment of it all with me.
I really do feel quite charmed at present.

The weekend back home was smashing. It was over far too quickly though. I got home just before 2pm on Friday afternoon, a good hour before The Boy finished school. That gave Nice & I just enough time to reacquaint ourselves (wink,wink). They I went to pick up The Boy. Oh it was lovely to see him, he was so excited when he saw me. He ran up to me & we had a great big cuddle. Within an hour though he was ignoring me in favour of computer games. That worked out quite nice though as it gave me a chance to have a soak in the tub & to russle up the sausage & egg sandwich that I'd been craving. After tucking him up in bed & reading him a story, I settled down to watch the 2 episodes of Lost that I'd missed. Nice came round & joined me. Strangely, as we sat on the sofa snuggled up with a spliff or two, I started to feel very homesick. How bizarre! Getting homesick at home! I, perhaps mistakenly with hindsight, felt that every time I'd go back to Lyon after coming home it would never be as exciting, no more discoveries, no more thrill of the new. Anyway, you can guess the rest of the evening. As The Boy was there I didn't feel right having Nice stay the night so she left about 2 am. And I had some lovely sleep in my own bed.

Saturday The Boy & I hung out at the flat for a bit before going over to Reckless & Dream Girl's. That was pretty much the last I saw of The Boy for the day as he & FussyEater helped Cutieboy, the birthday boy, play on his new playstation2. Sigh. I spent the evening telling tales of Lyon whilst getting very drunk & not a little stoned. So much so that I may have dosed off towards the end of Match of the day.

On Sunday I took The Boy & Cutieboy for a bit of the old laserquest malarkey. They bloody loved it. Before I knew it, it was time to take The Boy back to his mum, have another sneaky hour with Nice & trundle back up the Birmingham airport.

I arrived at the new hotel & was initially very pleased. It's so much nicer than the other one & it has proper pillows! And a couple of English speaking TV channels! And proper hardcore porn! (but only after midnight, so I've only seen it once, as yet.
Alas though, new hotel is a little further from the city centre & in a very quiet street, nowhere near an internet cafe. That, combined with Le Grand Gaffer taking us straight out after work, as made it nigh on impossible to blog.
We're looking at moving hotels again soon though so fingers crossed.

One more thing that I keep meaning to mention, Lyon has an extremely high quota of lookylikeys! It's true! Here at work there's a white Ashley Cole, a fella who looks frighteningly like my OnlyUncle & out about I've seen loads of em, none of whom I can remember now. Except for a guy with a startling resemblance to our very own Swiss Toni. Fancy that!

I hope I'll get the chance to have a nose round the neighbourhood & seen what you've all been up to, but I really ought to go & do some work.

Toodle pip, my petit pois!