Time for a rest

The interviewing season is over, the pre-departure gardening frenzy is over, and the journey is over.  The house seems to be hanging together, though I need hardly add that the rendering is still not finished.  I lack the energy for Pierre-chasing at the moment, and will start again next week.

Gatport Airwick was very busy this morning.  Perhaps it's not only we who are leaving the country for the remainder of the election campaign.  The flight was altogether very comfortable, given that we had a lot of cloud to climb and descend through.  The Easyjet aircraft seems to be Toulouse-based: the crew were French and the announcements likewise favoured the language of Voltaire.  Toulouse airport was altogether quieter than LGW, and progress through the pariahs' (non-Schengen) passport checks had a somewhat relaxed southern pace to it.  The ring-road, of course, was mayhem as usual, with various grades of kamikaze heading home for lunch.

It didn't help that I was driving a vehicle that takes a bit of getting used to.  Having been told to expect a SEAT Altea or similar, I was not wild about being presented with a Nissan delivery van with windows punched through the sides.  It goes well, thanks to one of Renault's turbo-diesel lumps.  Refined, however, it is not: it rolls like a 2CV (mild hyperbole...), and acquires a sick-making pitch and dip on some undulating stretches of the motorway.  On the poor surfaces of the lesser départementales of the Corbières, it rides even worse than my unlamented Alfa before I had it fitted with proper springs.  By comparison, the already firm-riding Altea feels like a Bentley.  We'll see how we feel about it in a day or two, but I don't rule out a trip back to Toulouse and a bit of table-thumping.  Fortunately, the clutch is viceless, and the gearchange is tolerable.  But if you can feel anything through the rim of the steering wheel, you're probably hallucinating.  It comes with most mod cons, however: cruise control, air conditioning and a trip computer, and the driving position is quite good - and lofty, of course.  But it refuses to change its own gears, which is tarsome.

Simple chicken dish for supper tonight, and an early night.