Home

After very little sleep, the drive south was always going to be a struggle. Mr B took the lion's share, as he usually does, with me taking over for him to have a quick snooze. After a day driving through gale force winds and very heavy rain, with the motorways more river-like than I've seen them before, it was a joy to arrive in the south to those blue skies and warm red colours. Turning off the 'big' motorway at Toulouse to head east on our 'little' motorway, you are suddenly immersed in the rolling hills of ploughed red soil and those lollipop evergreen trees you see all over the south.

This is the Porte de la Tarn - the entry to our department and one of the bits of public art often found on French motorways. I suppose it signals the moment when we are nearly home.

And it did feel like coming home. Home itself was as we had left it - though colder. Once the pizzas were in the oven and the heaters were on, it felt better. Save for a new little visitor who had been making merry in a packet of brioche regrettably left open on the bottom shelf... Mr B caught him in a glass (this particular mouse being a bold but slightly dim creature) and put him outside, but it is clear that traps will be needed to deter him and all his little friends from treating our home as their home.