One of my favourite literary characters is The White Witch from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Le Lion, la Sorcière blanche et l'Armoire magique). She's the one who turned Narnia into a land of eternal winter. At the age of ten, when I read of her feeding loukoum to the gullible Edmund as they huddled under furs on her sleigh, I caught my first glimpse of seduction.
The White Witch struck again this Christmas. For the second year running, I was stranded in London as the Eurostar service collapsed. Before leaving Paris, thanks to my status as a Frequent Traveller, I had received an email from David Mercer, Eurostar's commercial director. It said: «We have worked hard to ensure our trains are modified for snow conditions.»
On Sunday evening, we arrived at a chaotic St Pancras. There were lines around the block. A policeman advised us to go back to our hotel. The same scene greeted us on Monday morning. There were no more emails from David Mercer.
On Tuesday morning, I strode to the head of the immense queue and told a Eurostar staffer that, as the holder of a ticket for Sunday, I did not see why I had to stand in line for six hours with my five-months pregnant wife and her parents. Fortunately, she agreed. Soon we were sipping champagne as our train sped through a Narnia landscape. Like the White Queen, snow is beautiful – but treacherous.
