We were supposed to go to France today - it's sunny and warming up again and a friend loaned us his car for the 2 weeks he'll be away on summer holiday. So we packed up our backpacks with cameras and extra batteries and cigarettes and whatnot. We had to hike over to the Opel dealership where the car was parked. We arrived at 1pm to find they had already closed for the day at 12 noon. The place was dark and deserted and locked up. This is the sad/crazy part of a country that keeps severely limited work hours. In the US, at least a few of the mechanics would still have been hanging around talking and smoking and poking at their own cars and we could have thrown ourselves on their mercy and kindness and talked the into letting us have the car. But the place was empty and we had to hike all the way back home.

Monday we'll get the car and take a nice drive into France. Finally.

Meanwhile Asti arrived home safely late last night. I also spoke to Andrew and was relieved his surgery went well.

I hadn't realised how long it's been since I posted here. My ribs are healing pretty well. Most of the pain from bruising is completely gone. The ribs themselves still hurt if I bend or twist my torso quickly or carelessly. The real problem is they still hurt when I lay down. This makes sense of course since that's when there is direct pressure on them. Makes it a bit difficult to get a good night's sleep. But since I'm healing much more rapidly than is usual I shouldn't complain.

There was a terrorist attack on London today. Bombs on the tube and buses. Asti was at Liverpool St station when the first bomb exploded there. Luckily she wasn't actually down on the platform. She's fine. She just had to delay her flight home till tomorrow.

Tomorrow Andrew goes into hospital for foot surgery. I'm keeping fingers crossed all goes well for him.

It's going to be a long night.