The winter blahs

Well after all that sunny weather and 'hey this is not so bad' winter has now set in. It's been drizzly all week, and E and I have been sick - we both had la grippe (the flu), plus she had le gastro (tummy bug) and un rhume (a cold). So we have been housebound for a good couple of weeks and I've got cabin fever, bad. Added to that, Al has got into the habit of taking the car down to work and there are only 3 buses out of Aniane each day - two in the early morning and one at lunchtime - so I am really stuck here. Bored, bored, bored.

We still have 2 and a half months here, which on good days doesn't seem so long, too short even, but on other days feels like this



Some days I get a glimpse of this



Ah well. We are off to Germany and Denmark on Saturday. We're catching the TGV to Paris, then the overnight sleeper to Hamburg, so hopefully we will arrive refreshed and ready to go on Sunday morning! We've been keeping an eye on the weather forecast, hoping for a wee bit of snow - it looks a bit touch and go at the moment. In Hamburg I'm going to meet my German penfriend for the first time - we started writing to each other when we were 13!! After a couple of days there, we're heading to Copenhagen, also on the train, for a few days, then up to Aarhus, where we also have friends. I've never been to either Germany or Denmark, so it will be an interesting trip, and a welcome break.

The pictures above are of a disused railway tunnel just outside Aniane. It's quite a long one - right at the very centre there is a spot where you can't see light from either end!