History repeats

You may have read last Wednesday's Blip about our flight from Brive to Stansted and the out of control monsters noisy kids in the seats behind us.  We had a good overnight in the Hampton by Hilton and breezed through a cheery (!) Stansted security at 6.30am.  We had to take the little shuttle train out to our departure gate and, as we stepped off it and on to the escalator, our hearts stopped.  There they were; hyper 4 year old, slightly less hyper 8 year old, defeated dad and "shall we bash plasticine on the tray tables"  gran. Our return trips had coincided.  I tried everything, unsuccessfully, to discern the seat numbers on their boarding cards to see if they were in the row behind us again.  We watched anxiously as we boarded but couldn't see them in the queue behind us.  Eventually we spotted them heading our way, actually we heard the 4 year old screaming long before we spotted them. Up the steps they came, the screaming getting closer and louder.  And then, two rows behind us, they stopped and filed out across the plane.  Two rows of separation!  That meant one row of a buffer between us and another hellish journey.  But it was enough, with ear plugs firmly inserted and the high ambient noise levels of Boeing's rattly old 737, there was nothing but the odd scream and an occasional flare of a sibling argument to jar us during the flight.  We landed 45 minutes late but that didn't take the edge off walking out into the warm French sunshine and stepping into our little car.  Half an hour later we decided to stop at the creperie in Vayrac for lunch.  And who should be eating there but Madame and Monsieur May, just returned from the south of Spain.  We enjoyed a jaw-jaw catch up and galettes with chilled Normandy cider.  Pic is the big sage plant that decided to flower while we were away.