Lime's the new Lemon

It was the turn of the Turkish Grand Prix today, the first of the season being broadcast live at the normal lunchtime hour. Carl insisted that I watch it in his place, and even recorded it so we wouldn't miss any of the lead-up if I was late getting there. Not content with that, he forced a G & T into my hand as a welcoming drink. He apologised for the fact that he'd been obliged to drop in a wedge of lime rather than the usual lemon, but it was actually very nice, and well worth asking to pose as blip of the day.

The race itself was tremendously exciting, full of overtaking and even with a couple of hiccups in the pits which didn't help things for a few drivers. We were sorry to see Nico Rosberg lose places after his brilliant qualifying run, but delighted to see Fernando Alonso on the podium for Ferrari. Driver of the day, though, was Kamui Kobayashi, who finished in the points despite having started at the very back of the field.

After the race we turned to other recordings on Carl's TV: the wonderful Shane, even better than my memory of it, and an episode of Ballykissangel.

That ended the entertainment for the day, at which stage it was time to book our flights for St Petersburg, which will be the second port of call during our holiday in June. All our flights are now finalised: Dublin-Oslo; Oslo-St Petersburg; Helsinki-Dublin. This final flying leg was the most expensive by a long shot. Another airline does a direct flight between Oslo and St Petersburg, but only two days a week, which would have left us with either too little or too much time in Norway. The flight we've booked involves a three-and-a-half-hour stopover in Riga, and leaves us with a total travelling time of nine hours, but it's the best we could find. The most important things is that the booking is made.