I do hope it is, (or was) after the trials of last night

Hello everyone!  Thanks for the welcome back.  I'm feeling very refreshed and at least ten years younger!  Looking forward to Lapland in December now.

Please Anna, say you are in jest about the Hungry Caterpillar. It was the favourite story of all my youngsters and they're all as thin as beanpoles.  We have no fatties in our family at all (except for me on a bad week but I can soon shift it if I concentrate.... ). 

It's suddenly turned rather cold up here.

Anyone living in coastal Norfolk, Suffolk or Kent? Severe flood warnings for tonight - waves up to 9.5 ft higher than sea level... 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7085394.stm

"O tide, that waits for no man, spare our coasts!"

You can probably guess which opera that's from.

We stopped off in Barcelona, Cannes (Nice), Rome, Naples (Pompeii), Messina (trip up Mount Etna - which was steaming gently  ), Tunis and Malaga.

I'd been to all these places before but I thought it would be an easy first trip for the youngster.  Lovely ship, great food.  It was just the rest and pampering that I've needed for so long.  Of the excursions, my favourite was the "Roam around Rome" which was exactly what we did all day.  The weather everywhere was very warm and sunny except up Mount Etna, where it was cloudy, cool and showery.  That was little 'un's favourite trip.  We took the school mascot bear with us and so Barnaby Bear has been photographed in all these places.  They have a map in the classroom to chart his travels and the children can book him out for their trips.  I'm going to book him out for Lapland as well.  

The only bugbear on the trip was that I was pickpocketed in Barcelona in the Cathedral of all places whilst taking pics of the lovely white geese in there.  They took my purse with my credit card and some Euros.  I can claim the Euros back on my insurance but I can tell you that never was a credit card cancelled quicker in the history of credit card theft!  I realised almost immediately afterwards what had happened, but it was so crowded in there that I didn't see who did it.  I got outside, rang one of my sons in England in his office on my mobile and he got my card cancelled for me immediately.  We carried on with the trip round Barcelona, which was a half-day one, but when we got back to the ship I had to contact the local police so that I could get a case number for my insurance claim.  My friend took the two boys back on board and I waited 3 hours (!) in Spanish Customs for the Catalonian police to come.  Slow?  Ye gods! If you lost a child you'd be screwed!!!  Fortunately I still had my passport too because that's a dreadful inconvenience as well if it goes.  Anyway when they did finally saunter in, none of them could speak English and of course my limited Spanish is not Catalonian.  I was supplied with a very nice Polish lady (!) to interpret between us.  It was all so slow!  However, when they gave me the forms to look at I understood the questions which were in Spanish, so I managed to fill them in very quickly with no help at all in the end and pass them back to the Three Stooges.  When all that was finally done, I had to really run to the ship because it was set to sail at 5 and this was dead-on.  I absolutely raced up to it just as they were about to take up the gangplank.  When I got there I realised that my cruise card had also gone with my identity on it and for a horrible moment I thought they wouldn't let me back on.  However the whizzo machine they have there had also got my picture on, so I was allowed.  It's all hilarious now but I admit to being more than slightly stressed at the time.  

It's all grist to the Mill.  

Everyone (almost) is robbed in Barcelona. (Not me, actually.) One of my sons had his luggage bag stolen - and he was sitting by it at the time. I also know someone whose handbag strap was cut through and the lot taken. What a nuisance though, Milly - but the rest must have been really good .