The forecasters were right - Paris positively glowed today in 16-degree sunshine. I also positively glowed in my red ski jacket, but was at least able to remove it for lunch sur la terrasse. What a treat to be able to sit outside at a restaurant in a T-shirt at this time of the year. See? That's the EU for you.

I deserved an outdoor lunch treat though, since I was up at 05:45 and off to Terminal One at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to meet daughter Catherine. I knew it was her when she came through the opaque arrival doors - I've seen enough zombie movies to know one of the walking dead when I see one.

To be fair, she had survived what last week was trumpeted as 'the world's longest non-stop flight', a 17-hour slog from Auckland to Doha with Qatar Airways. The trip was made more bearable, she told me later, by having three empty seats to herself. WTF??! How come that never happens to me? That's worth gold on a long-haul.

She paid for it on the second leg though, with a much more crowded flight (which, when you think about it, really shouldn't be called a second leg; 'second elbow' would be more appropriate), so add to that the change in time zones and I can appreciate why it was The Terminal One that came through the doors at Terminal One, towing what looked like a long black caterpillar.

This, it turned out, is her snowboard bag, doubling in this case as a suitcase. It has crawled along behind her today as we first of all went back to my hotel for breakfast, then caught the train to Cergy, and it was behind her again on the 20-minute stroll to where the boat is moored, which is where we are now for a short while. It tripped up about 15 Parisian commuters on its journey, blocked train doors from closing, and provided an excellent exercise regime for Catherine every time we came to an escalator.

It didn't, however, attract the attention of the armed police, vigilantly roaming the concourses. They were more concerned with unattended luggage than anything being dragged along by a 25-year-old zombie, even if it did look like she was taking someone home for a good draining.

Also, since it was bulky and heavy, it failed to attract any thieves on the trains. Unlike yesterday when I witnessed (well, glimpsed from the corner of my eye) a robbery on the train from Gare du Nord to CDG Airport. A man who had sat quietly next to a woman for at least ten minutes suddenly leapt up and ran through the closing train doors at a station, at which point the middle-aged woman shouted something in French that was, from the tuts and concern all around the carriage, that she had just been robbed.

Of course the armed police weren't on the train - they seem to patrol only the stations - and it was way too late to pull any alarm lever. There are also no train staff. We were all left in a stunned state of helplessness.

And because Catherine was still mid-flight at that point, there were no zombies available; otherwise I'd have set her on him. She'd have run him down. The black caterpillar would have been right behind her. There would have been blood, and lots of it. Am I sure? O-positive.