The Longest Day

Too early, too early. Why did we think it was a good idea to get a 10am flight home after a party? With only a couple of hours sleep, the Ryanair experience was extra painful.

Carcassonne was suffering a tropical deluge. Everyone was dripping wet by the time we got to passport control. It had started raining a bit when we left our house on Saturday morning and, from the state of the ground, it clearly hadn't stopped since then. There was a whole kerfuffle at the car park: the man at the front of the queue hadn't realised you pay inside before exit (neither had we or any of the other people in the queue) so we all had to run back in through the rain to try and find the machine. By the time the front person got back, his ticket was so soaking wet that the machine wouldn't accept it. Happily the person behind loaned his ticket, and everyone just drove through really fast hoping the barrier wouldn't suddenly come down.

Long rainy mountain drive to our friends in Castres - who were patiently waiting with their other guests to start lunch. Wonderful food and one of those long lovely Sunday lunches where the chat and laughs flow as freely as the Fitou, and just goes on until bedtime. At some point the two French couples and their children had to leave, just after the Irish coffee shown above. The rest of us carried on, and on, and on. Through the crab walking demonstration, some unseemly conversations about toilets and hangovers and a long chat for me with the host - a fine photographer who I am still trying to bully onto blip... He's made me think more about what I'm doing with all this, and I think probably inspired me to get off the plateau I'm on, stop worrying about the equipment I have, and just get better.

Early night tonight: 3am.