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Air travel is never a great experience, and I'm sure Mr O'Leary would agree that he isn't interested in  making it any less unpleasant.  His outfit raked in close on half a billion Euros in profit last year, which can't be bad, even if his customers do grizzle.  The flight got us back on schedule (which they never cease crowing about) despite some delays getting rolling at Perpignan.  We'd plenty time once the closing-down chores were done, and so ambled across the mountains, rather than use more fuel and pay tolls on the autoroute.  Lovely views of the Pyrenees and of the vineyards, which are now colouring up nicely. We also had time for a serviceable lunch at the airport.  (Don't have the red fruit crumble - served cold in a stodgy pastry case, and desperately sweet.)  Nice view south across the apron, watching the starlings swooping across the horizon.   Of aircraft movements, next to nothing: a couple of light aircraft only apart from our flight and one for Orly.  Perpignan serves relatively few destinations, so it was surprising to see a Nordwind Airlines 757 parked there with no stairs attached.  Who they? you enquire.  No clue in the Bermuda registration, and it turns out to be Russian.  There's a firm at Perpignan that does a lot of re-painting and cannibalising of older aircraft for spares, so we speculate that there wasn't room for it on the maintenance hangar apron, which is rather full of de-engined 727s etc.

As when we left, the journey from Stansted home was less bad than we'd expected, with only brief spells of crawling in the M25 queues.  Busy, of course, and unpleasant in the rain and darkness, but it was over in an hour and a half, including a pause to get bread and milk in the village.  It's nice to be back in a centrally-heated house, though, and to get back to our competent vehicles.

During our absence, the Mairie has replied signalling no objection to my proposed re-pointing of the house, saying only that the work must be finished flush to the surface of the stones, using local sand that matches the colour of the stones.  Good news, since the town clerk thought I might have to re-render the wall, which would have cost substantially more.  So, armed with letters from the Mayor, the Architecte des Bâtiments de  France, the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles de Languedoc-Roussillon (Service Territorial de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine de l'Aude), the Ministère de l'Ecologie, du Développement Durable et de l'Energie (whose comment, incidentally, reads 'sorry, mate - not my department, but here's a list of a few other other ministries who could do with the jobs') and the Prefect, no less.  The cream of the Grandes Ecoles having thus been kept busy for three months, I am now authorised to point my walls.  Just don't let them discover 'elf 'n safety, please!