France

Last Wednesday I got dragged to France. I've never been to France, although I have tried their method of kissing before and even their ticklers once or twice.

Lisa and I had taken the kids to London for Easter weekend, their first visit to the city. That visit is another story entirely - hint: try dragging a 3 year old around London for a weekend with the Circle and District lines under repair. We returned home on Monday evening, went straight to bed. Upon waking the next day, the first thing to happen was a phone call to say that my father was in hospital...in LOURDES!

Information flowed quickly from there - he'd taken some kind of attack, been rushed to hospital, given tests (including an MRI) at which point word filtered out that he had "a 90% mass" in one of his lungs. A cousin delivered this news to me personally (which was appreciated, but unnecessary), although we'd already decided that I should fly out the next day.

Lisa - Our Lady of Internet Deals - made the booking and drove me to Dublin for my flight to France. My one-way flight to France. I didn't quite know when I was coming back.