Texting

I was up too late for breakfast. When I got downstairs, Carl had obviously been busy for some time doing research for our upcoming trip to France. Carl will be godfather at his nephew's christening on Easter Sunday. That's happening in Lyon, so we've decided to combine that with a bit of a break in France during his Easter break from college.
Until this morning the outline of our travel plan was to spend three nights in Lyon, one in Montpellier, another three in Sète, and then a final two in Carcassonne. We'll be away for eight days in all.
Sète was on the itinerary because Carl was anxious to have some quality chill-out time, and what we'd read and heard about Sète seemed to suggest that it would be ideal. Now, though, Carl's research gave him the impression that it would be too big and busy and restricting, and he suggested that we go to Collioure instead. I agreed immediately, so that's now decided. It should be a good trip.
We combined a lovely salmon lunch (including a gorgeous bottle of wine) with the Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the new season. Lots of talk about the start of 'a new era', with less powerful engines and a hybrid drive system. Some teams worked things out better than others, which partly explained why Sebastian Vettel didn't even qualify in the top ten and then had to retire from the race quite early on. His new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo finished second, so kept Red Bull happy — at least until the stewards decided that he be excluded because of rule infringement.
After the race, we watched two episodes of Foyle's Law (one really good, the other – from a later series – much less satisfying). By then it was getting quite late, so I left Carl's place and headed for home. First I stopped in Goggin's in Monkstown, which is where this sneaky bar-side blip came from. Back outside, I took a quick shot of the floodlit church across the road and then began to go continue on home. Taking the church shot, though, put the whole idea of night-time blipping into my head, and that's why it was 3:00 am by the time I actually got home. The full story of a very rewarding photo session can be seen in a Flickr set.