Hi, Baukjen here.
A few weeks ago Geoff (my husband and our business partner) and I were approached about doing an interview about what it's like to work with your husband/wife. It was for one of the big Sunday newspapers. The interview was to take place at the champagne bar at St.Pancreas train station last Thursday at 10.30am.
So on Thursday Geoff and I went to the champagne bar early to be on time. We were waiting for the journalist when Geoff took something out of his briefcase and casually showed it to me asking if I remembered it. It was a book that we had read during a trip to Paris when we had just started dating approx 10 years ago. I looked at it and said I remembered it clearly. He pointed to some tickets inside the book and I saw they were the Eurostar tickets from our trip years back. I smiled and he told me to look closely. I didnt understand and then he said that today (Thursday) was exactly ten years since we went on our first date and that there was no interview and instead we were getting on the Eurostar train in twenty minutes to go for 4 days to Paris. I was totally amazed and started saying that we couldn't go as I didnt have any luggage with me (he said a friend of the family was waiting by the entrance downstairs with our luggage), the kids needed looking after (he told me my mother and stepfather were looking after them), I had lots of work to do (he said that he had arranged deadlines to be moved) etc etc. I could not believe it.
Half an hour later we were on our way to Paris with a glass of champagne. Just after lunchtime we arrived in Paris and drove to a fabulous hotel that I had once mentioned to Geoff I would love to visit one day. There we had a beautiful room overlooking the rooftops of Paris. We walked around and then had a beautiful dinner which ended with the waiters coming with cake with candles. When I unpacked my bags, I saw that Geoff had packed all my favourite clothes and shoes for day and for evening (I think Vanessa helped here). He (they) had thought of everything.
The next morning we went to a cooking course that Geoff had booked. I loved every minute of it though it was difficult to follow everything in French but I think I did ok. After we walked through a romantic area of Paris, met up with friends for drinks and then went for dinner in an old Bistro which was like time had not touched it in fifty years.
On Saturday we walked all day. The weather was beautiful. Geoff had booked lunch at a beautiful Art Deco restaurant where we ended up talking with the French people sitting at the tables to the left and right of ours. In the evening we had drinks at Hotel Costes and a light dinner at our hotel and then watched a film.
Sunday (today) we had breakfast at Angelina's and then went to see the Christian Lacroix exhibition at the Louvre Museum. After we spent a few more hours walking in the area and then went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and take the Eurostar back to London. The kids were excited to see us, had had a wonderful weekend with their grandparents and are now soundly asleep upstairs.
I can honestly say this was the best surprise ever and I loved every minute of it. As one friend said to me, you can't argue with him for a while now. I responded by saying I agreed that I probably couldn't have an argument for the next two months or so to which my friend responded "No Baukjen, quite a bit longer than that."
It was just the best weekend ever.
