Leaving Manchester.

A very early, cold and wet start to the morning and a drive across the Pennines to Manchester airport with our next door neighbour as chauffeur. We hope he got home safely as the snow was coming down quite thick and fast as we reached the highest point on the Woodhead Road.

A brief opportunity to shop for books and magazines in WH Smiths and to have breakfast and then we were off on the first long leg of our flight to Australia to visit my daughter and family. It's two years since we last made the trip and we were looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up.

An hours stopover at Munich was new to us this year. The pleasure in being able to get off the plane for an hour was short lived as I ripped my finger open on something sharp that was sticking out of my backpack. (A stray needle as it turned out.) Fortunately the the airport paramedics were able to patch me up and it didn't need to be stitched. Just lots of blood and quite a bit of shock!

Back blip - photo courtesy of A