Clear as mud

The last week seems to have flown by and here we are back in France once more. It felt as if I was in London for weeks, although it was only 13 days and it also felt as if I had been away from France for weeks, although now that I am back everything is just as it was and feels very familiar.

It was a strange and difficult time in London. I have a sense that I didn't achieve a great deal and yet lots of little things got sorted and fixed (new tyres and brake light for the car, mended plug in the sink etc) and I was there to help Debrah with her tooth problem. Just being there was the most important thing for her, so in that sense it was very valuable time.

I am very pleased to say that Debrah looks much healthier than she has for a while which is entirely due to not having a massive throbbing pain in her mouth any longer and, as a result, not having to take massive amounts of painkillers each day - she has got stronger and healthier every day for the past week - hurrah - and now she can have a week of rest and relaxation here in France with me and with no work pressures, although we do have some Christmas planning to do on menus and room decoration etc.

London is of course full of Christmas, in the papers and in the shops and especially on the TV - and the lights are all in full neon glow on Oxford and Regent Street and I suppose elsewhere too. We are probably two weeks away from it all kicking off here in Carcassonne although the preparations are well under way and most of the lights are up in place and ready to go.

The other thing that you can't avoid in the UK is the credit crunch/economic downturn/depression - it is rammed down your throat at every opportunity in every branch of the media, in every TV programme and every newspaper article - I really believe the media make any problem much worse than it really is in their need to tell the same story in ever more dramatic tones as they bid to outdo each other with their sensationalist exposeés.

Of course, there is an economic problem and I am affected as much as anyone and have spent a large part of the last week assessing the impact of the falling pound against the euro, the options for our London apartment (impossible to sell at the moment, but possible to rent it out), how to relieve the impact of debts and coming up on a daily basis with a different solution to solve the problem of Debrah and me spending too much time apart from each other.

Are we any clearer about what we are going to do - absolutely not.