Home sweet (rainy) Home.

Here I am again, back in Bradford. It turns out that the know-it-all French people who say it rains all the time in England are right. This morning it was 30degrees in Paris, and the train to the airport was almost twice that and filled with the usual assortment of beggars, accordion players who only know one tune and smelly, hairy Frenchmen who love to chat to young foreign girls. Fortunately I've done this trip enough times now to know which seat to choose, the exact angle to hold my book to see these dodgy men approaching without looking too interested, and the right volume to have my Walkman so I drown out their heavily accented English chat up lines. Having said all this, it's quite entertaining to watch them work their "charm" on other girls...

Last time I came home I was stopped by the security people and had all my hand luggage searched. Not only did they take every single thing out of my handbag, but they also contemplated the idea of unwrapping my sister's birthday present which I'd wrapped myself only a couple of hours before. Who knew a big tin box covered in maps and a giant pencil could look like a terrorist threat?! Today they were a lot more relaxed - didn't even ask if I packed the bag myself (I had, who else would do it for me?) and whether I wanted an aisle seat (I did) They did, however, ask if I had paid for my bag. Since when do you have to PAY to take luggage on a plane. I was lucky, because I can speak French they let me off, the people in front had to go somewhere else to pay for theirs, despite having just queued for over half an hour. We took off 20 minutes later than planned and I found myself sitting next to a girl I was at uni with. She studiously avoided me, to the point of going to sit in the empty seat in front of me, so I read my book and drank PG tips to prepare me for being back in Yorkshire. One of my favourite things about arriving home is that my Mum and Dad come to the airport to meet me and stand at the window in the café waving like mad things as I walk towards the passport control. Today there was a slight change in proceedings; my plane arrived at the same time as several others and so there were a lot of people heading down the corridor with me. Mum and Dad were so busy watching other people that they didn't notice me at all until I hammered on the glass right in front of them, much to the amusement of the man sitting beside them. But they were there and it's always lovely to see them.

So, back to the weather...basically it's raining. It's been raining for weeks apparently, and shows no sign of stopping. It's mid-July but seems like October. Enough said.

I have so many more things to tell about my week - films, dates, parties, lunches, riding in ambulances...but they'll have to wait. I'm hungry and Mum is cooking. Yum.