Pleeeease!

Are some of those Dublin Bay prawns for me? It's hardly a spoiler to say that the answer was yes. He had one, I had one, S had two.

Another trouble-free travelling day. We left the hotel at 7:30 am UK time and arrived home at 2:30 pm French time, so six hours door to door, and that included a diversion to Lézignan to do some shopping on the way home, hence said giant prawns. I like S's system of taking underseat baggage only and sitting in row 33 (not too close to the toilet but among the first out of the back door).

We were also treated to a windless approach to Carcassonne, a very rare event. A smooth landing as opposed to the usual wavering, wing-waggling multiple bounce. The weather had been miserable in Manchester (raining, cold enough to see your breath), so imagine our delight to step out of the plane to blue skies and 16C.

Mystère was obviously delighted too. He draped himself over me purring and was on my lap within half an hour. Our catsitters had looked after him well, despite getting frustrated at his picky eating habits -- he looks healthy enough. Blip features his new collar as he managed to lose his scruffy old one at some point.

It was good to come home to a warm house too. Fire lit, ribollita from the freezer for a late lunch, and wine and nibbles courtesy of Picard by the fire in the evening -- too tired to contemplate anything else.

Footnote: it's quite amusing to reflect that last Christmas we serendipitously avoided airport chaos, doing the journey by train, and this year we made the right choice again ... all Eurostars today cancelled due to flooding!