D-Day 80

It was another lovely start to the day. We had the early drop-off and Ellie tucked into her breakfast before going upstairs to get washed and dressed. Today, at school, they have been remembering the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. All of the children turned up for school in appropriate WWII dress. Ellie was dressed as a “Land Girl” and looked the part, all she needed was her own tractor. As we took her to school we marvelled at the different costumes the kids were sporting.

Back home, Diane went to the hairdresser and left me to my own devices. My most important task was to finalise my wardrobe for my trip and then get the suitcase packed. Would it be hot? Would it be chilly? Would we go out touring? Would it be wet? I had to make some decisions and pack accordingly. In the end, I was happy with my selection and the suitcase was closed and locked. I then started on my hand baggage. I was determined to limit this to my “man bag”. It took some shuffling, but in the end I was set.

We had a proper lunch so that it wouldn’t matter whether I had anything else later. Then we managed an hour of Kindle time before Diane took me to the train.

The journey to Gatwick only takes about 75 minutes. Unfortunately, despite trying to read, there was an elderly man holding court to a poor unsuspecting Swedish businessman who was too polite to walk away. The elderly chap was an Evangelical Christian and kept weaving The Bible into his diatribe on the government, Israel, and the end of days. I was glad when we arrived at Gatwick and I could escape into the chaos.

The bag drop and the security Fast Track worked well. In fact, as I was writing the scanner, I bumped into Charlie. Once through to the departure lounge, I met up with Brian and Barbara. Soon after, Charlie and MAggie emerged from Duty Free. Our place was delayed by 20 minutes… or at least, that’s what they claimed. In the end it and hour late taking off.

We landed in Toulouse after a pleasant flight and were quickly through Passport Control and baggage reclaim. Mike and Liz were waiting as we emerged and we headed for the cars. Liz has a Mini Convertible and Mike has an SUV. As I had never met her before, I decided to travel with Liz and our little convoy headed out onto the highways and byways. The convoy was soon dispersed by the traffic and there were road closures on the usual route, so I had to fire up Google Maps to navigate. It was about an hour’s drive and pulled into the driveway of their home about 2 minutes after them.

Once we were settled in our rooms, we opened some fizz and sat chatting until åabout 1 o’clock, when we decided it was time to call it a day.