My trip to Paris was fairly rushed, but comfortable enough, as I only took hand luggage both ways, so escaped the horrible wait for suitcases plus lugging stuff upstairs. I managed to do quite a bit of tidying up at home, washing etc, as well as shopping.

My squishy mail arrived, most of it at any rate, so I am well supplied with books to read, also the Shepherds Bush "Sail Away" kit arrived, all my red Belle Soie silks and the Romy Austria Sampler - which also calls for Gloriana Rosewood, popular colour that. I still have to evaluate the red silks I bought completely, but there are some good colours there. The only thing I was mildly cross about was that I couldn't find Millennium 3 (French version, it hasn't been translated into English yet) in any bookshop I went to, it is so popular. I totally recommend the Millennium Trilogy, but I think only the first one is available in English now. I am dying to find out what happens in Volume 3....

Today I came into work at 8:30am as usual, although I did not get into Nicosia until 10:45 last night. The plane came via Thessaloniki, where we sat on the ground for about 45 minutes, while they refuelled and cleaned, and people got off and on. It was one of those little Airbus A320s with one door at the front, so I could see everything that was going on and everyone had to walk past me to get off and on. They told us to stay in our seats during refuelling with our seatbelts unfastened, and on no account to use anything that might interfere with the process - so, of course, the first thing that happens is that several French guys go up the front and ask if they can go outside to smoke! Well, no, which they had to be told several times. So another lot of French people decide that they would like to move up the front and sit in business class and chat loudly during the stop, and protest vociferously when they get removed. Poor flight attendant who is supposed to be supervising off and onloading of food trolleys instead has to supervise French people!

Today is very quiet here, as Alec is in Tel Aviv for the week, he has a deep relationship with his dentist at present, think it must be root canals or something equally complicated and expensive. There is also no DBA, he is on holidays for a week, so I cannot do some of the testing I was going to.... I'll have to work out after lunch exactly what I can do this week, it may not be much.