Monkeying about

This very monkeyed about with iphone photo can't disguise the fact that I didn't take any proper photos today. It was this or a blurry wind turbine that you'd only know was a wind turbine if I told you.

So I have no photos of a morning spent in a sunny Chiswick park (after some shopping on the ever-sunny Chiswick High Street), nor any photos of a picnic lunch at Lesley's (with the slightly surreal situation of my kids being around while hers were at school), nor any photos of the queue chaos for Ryanair flights at Luton, nor of the blissfully sleeping (slightly poorly) Conor next to me on the flight, nor (hurrah) of the terror on my face as the plane did that annoying nearly, but not quite landing manoeuvre.

I may have mentioned about a thousand times that I'm a nervous flier. I don't like pilots who monkey about and do unexpected stuff. Now granted this wasn't his fault (suddenly stronger winds) but I think a bit more information a bit quicker might have been nice. That way I wouldn't have had to explain that all was well to a little boy while really thinking that the fact that we were heading out to sea meant that there was a bomb on board so we had to ditch in the Med to avoid injuring anyone on the ground (hey, I never said my fears were rational).

Happily, there was no bomb on board and we did not ditch in the sea. Even more happily our car was still in the illegal place we'd parked it. However, our journey home was otherwise as thwarted as our journey to Beziers. We did manage to find an eatery to fill us all up, but the motorway was choked with bank holiday traffic so, bored with the stop start into the blindingly bright setting sun* we veered off onto a road through the mountains. Obviously, that road was actually closed, resulting in a very long tedious deviation through a bendy chasm bounded with rock and with only enough space between the river and mountain for a row of abandonned mills and tanneries and a very narrow road. Not the least stressful drive we've ever had in the dark. So, home at an unscheduled 11pm, with the kids and me straight to bed.

A tiring end to a weekend that was, otherwise, exhausting in all the right ways.

The photo, in case you're interested, is the Canal du Midi on the way out of Carcassonne. Or into Carcassonne depending which way you're heading.

*Which we would have been driving away from had we gone to our closest airport instead - as I didn't point out to Mr B....