Delirious

I spent the weekend in London and then returned today with my wife in our English Renault packed with stuff that we couldn't bring out here on the plane. It is amazing how much a straightforward and innocuous sentence such as that can conceal.

I returned to London on Friday afternoon, two days later than originally planned, which meant that my weekend was going to be considerably busier than I'd hoped. There was the usual last minute drama before I left. When we opened the tub of pre-mixed tile grout there was hardly any left and a kitchen floor and wall and a shower and bathroom floor to grout. I had spent several days last Autumn mixing different quantities of anthracite and sienna tile grout powder to get the perfect match for the dark brown ceramic tiles which are such a complete nightmare to cut but which look fantastic when finally in place. It couldn't wait until I came back if BD-1 was to be achieved, so less than an hour before my flight we were chasing around the DIY stores of Carcassonne hoping and praying that this weeks nationwide shortage wasn't tile grout in anthacite and sienna. It wasn't, I'm glad to say.

If only the journey home had gone as smoothly as that. The plane from London arrived late so that our take-off slot was missed and an hours delay ensued until air traffic control could get us back up into the crowded skies over Europe. The Stansted Express train service was similarly fouled up after an earlier problem, which meant that my normal four hour trip became a six hour one. Every now and again it is bound to happen - it's not a disaster but it is a pain.

When I arrived in England it was pouring with rain. I had read the reports of the flooding and dreadful weather conditions so was not surprised. In addition two car bombs had been found in London and someone was shortly to drive a burning jeep into the doors of Glasgow airport - events for me which make me nostalgic about the IRA 1980's. Isn't that just crazy? A terrorist is trying to bring carnage to the London I live in today and all it does for me is make me recall a previous life some twenty years earlier with the fondness of nostalgia. No fear. No panic. No concern.

This was amply demonstrated on my Saturday night in London spent at a new private members club, on the edge of the City of London, which was packed to the rafters with people unconcerned about terrorists. Of course, everyone was soaking wet because it was belting down with rain so that groups huddled under any available cover on the rooftop bar but stayed on the rooftop - getting wet in mid summer in England is as normal as ignoring a terrorist threat. So we drank vodka martinis by the heated rooftop pool and played pool in the heated downstairs bar - what a top London night out.

On the Sunday after the Saturday night before, we tried very hard to pack everything that we wanted to take to France into our Renault Laguna Estate - but try as we might it wouldn't all fit and the stress of it all just made our heads ache even more!

As a result of my later return to the UK, I had to work most of Saturday and Monday too. Monday was supposed to be a day of a few final adjustments and taking it easy before an overnight drive down to Carcassonne. Instead, the second closing of the second round of funding took place for the company for whom I work, which is very good, but meant I only had an hour once back home to sort myself out and get in the car.

This is the first time that we have tried an overnight drive, which would only work with two drivers taking it turns, one driving whilst the other slept. The principle is fine; the practice is pretty arduous. It is 700 miles and 11 hours from London to Carcassonne and doing it through the night after all day at work proved to be an interesting experience. Actually, it was a good trip - the car ran like a dream, if a little sluggish up the hills due to the weight being carried - Paris and everywhere else was a doddle because the roads were pretty empty - the excellent 'cafe noir' available at all French service stations gave the next driver a sufficient wake up call for their 100km stint. That was about the limit of each spell behind the wheel before the tiredness started to kick in again. The incessant rain was a problem too - you know how it is, dark, rainy, bright headlights, tired - not a good combination. South of Limoges the rain stopped just as the dawn was breaking and by the time we reached Toulouse the sun was out and a lovely Languedoc day was unfolding - let's hope that's a good sign for the rest of our stay this month.

We arrived at roughly 10.00am, not quite knowing whether to go straight to bed or to get stuck into the mountain of work that still needs doing. In the end it was a bit of both. I had to deal with the unexpected 'can't mix by hand the floor screed with the fibreglass strengthener' emergency by arranging the hire of a 'petit bettonniere' (small cement mixer) for a day and the purchase of at least the same again in sand and cement as I had already bought. My wife, Debrah (I'm so fed up of typing 'my wife') veered between sleeping like the dead and cleaning like someone who had taken speed tablets - which was probably a good solution as she got some much needed sleep and did loads of work - whereas I plodded on at a slower and slower pace and probably not very efficiently until I got a second, or maybe third, wind which kicked in late evening and allowed me to describe all this to you all. Goodnight.