Kerre Woodham: A happy Paris lining in ash cloud over Europe

Sigh. all good things must come to an end and thus it was that at 11am on Thursday morning, I arrived in Auckland, my Parisian idyll over.

It could have been longer, were it not for having my conscientious and blissfully-in-love daughter travelling with me and were it not for the efficiency of Singapore Airlines, the first airline to organise a flight out of Paris.

Kate had insisted we follow the lead of one member of our group who had gone into the SA offices in Paris and given them her contact details in case planes started flying.

Me? I was quite happy to take my chances on a waiting list. When do you ever get the opportunity to play hookie - legitimately? I was perfectly content sitting on a waiting list and saw absolutely no need to be too proactive about getting back.

But Kate was concerned about missing her law lectures and she was desperately missing her boyfriend, so down we went to Place Victor Hugo and she gave the nice man every possible way we could be contacted.

And, oaths and curses, her conscientiousness paid off.

At 4pm on Tuesday afternoon, just after we'd checked into the dearest little hotel in St Germain, the call came through. There's a flight tonight at 10, said the nice Singapore Airlines man. Be at Charles de Gaulle airport at 7pm.

Kate was delirious with happiness, and I tried to arrange my features into something resembling pleasure. We presented ourselves at the airport and were given seat numbers.

A couple of people were weeping as they'd been unable to get on the flight. I looked across at them in a speculative fashion and Kate glared at me sternly.

"Don't even think about giving up your seat!" she said. "You need to get home."

And she was right: I did, and I have, and now normal life resumes. And my routine life is not half bad at all.

It's just that it's not often clouds of ash give you an unexpected silver lining of an extended stay in Paris. I was very, very happy to make the most of it.