East

Looking East down the taxiway at Nimes airport. Which is a curious thing to be doing on a flight from Stansted to Carcassonne. Yes, we had the full Ryanair experience today.

Early start, after a night spent waking every 30 minutes paranoid that I'd set the alarm wrong. The minivan driver arrived late, spent 15 minutes getting petrol and then criticised me for not booking the car earlier when we ended up snarled up on the North Circular. Regardless, we were there on time and all was going smoothly until on the plane they announced that we were just going to stop off in Nimes "on the way" (it's actually past our destination) to take an engineer to look at a plane damaged by a bird strike. Now whilst I have every sympathy for the folk stuck in Nimes, it seems a little unnecessary to inconvenience a whole other plane load of folk to help sort it out.

Also Katherine is prone to air sicknesses, and this time the nausea started 5 minutes after take off (the first take off, that is). She hates being sick and fought it bravely for hours - in fact until 2 minutes after we touched down in Carcassonne. Added to the flight being bumpy all the way (I'm a very nervous flier...) that meant I was a bit wrecked by the stress of the whole thing. Katherine of course bounced off the plane fine asking if she could have some sweeties now.

After all that it was even more of a joy to see Mr B and Conor. Home for dispensing of presents, duck and chips and Strictly Ballroom on the telly. Not the ideal end to my lovely break, but I'll soon forget it and remember only the busy fun time in London instead.