I paid a visit yesterday to the Domaine de Sandricourt, about 30 miles northwest of Paris. On this large estate is an old farm used by American ambulance corps as a training camp during the First World War. My grandfather spent several months here in 1917 and 1918. Mr. G, the son of the owner in 1917, graciously showed me around before he and his wife offered a sumptuous lunch and interesting conversation in the chateau!

The old farm look similar to the way it looked in my grandfather's day, although the buildings are a bit rundown. Mr. G is trying to get them renovated and meanwhile has rented it to a budding beekeeper.

It was eery standing in the muddy courtyard of this place that I've read about for so long. But there may be several eery moments on this voyage of discovery.

L'amour, l'amour!

I knew from the start the three vieilles françaises were going to be trouble. There was something about these women that set off my alarm bells. I'm not sure if it was the piles of carry-on luggage and shopping bags they had, or the sense of entitlement that eminated from them. They could have been sisters. They all had the same platinum blond dye job and were clad in matching fur jackets, velvet jump suits, Uggs and DG eyewear (real or knock-off). All of them had leathery wrinkled skin from too much sun and too many cigarettes.

Unfairly, I pegged them as first/business glass passengers for when we boarded they were just in front of me in coach. And my alarm bells were not wrong: the women delayed the whole boarding process by blocking the aisle, asking others to lift all their carry on luggage into the overhead bins and generally standing around as we tried to squeeze past.

Once we were airborne three vieilles françaises didn't cause problems. The one nearest me (diagonally across the aisle) was a nervous flyer and started having emotional fits when we spent hours flying through severe turbulence. The meal and beverage service was suspended twice. Every shake and side-ways motion of the plane sent her into a panic. She was trying to watch some of the classic films available on the entertainment system. As I watched what she was watching (George Cukor's The Women from 1939) I realized I'd seen it so many times that I could recite the dialogue just from watching the actresses' mouths. Jungle red!

Once at the baggage claim, these three women reverted to their entitled behavior, however. Not once, but twice the woman who'd had the fits on the plane pushed her way through people waiting for their bags on the carrousel to grab one of her bags and hit them with it as she went. If someone stood in her way she just stopped and glared at them until they moved out of her way. Encroyable!