Chilling out.

We arrived back eventually. The plane's lightening-zapped navigation radios apparently couldn't be fixed or replaced so we had to take a circuitous route over much of the northern hemisphere, via north America, Newfoundland, skirting Greenland up to Iceland before heading south to the UK to avoid flying directly over the Atlantic. This took 11 hours instead of eight and we landed almost exactly 24 hours after we should have done. Why the plane could not do this the previous day, is anyone's guess. The Frenchman was not impressed and told me to keep any future criticism of Air France (did ever an airline boast such po-faced and surly staff?) to myself. He then took to bed for half a day, got up, ate dinner, drank some wine and returned to bed not to be seen again until after midday.

At around five to midday, I remembered it was Father's Day and persuaded La Fille to scribble a hasty drawing (another in her multi-coloured dolphin series) and write 'papa' at the top, except it was the bottom because I didn't notice I'd got the picture upside down. He thinks she did this herself - well she did what resembled two 'a's by herself and I helped with the 'p's - and is now convinced she's a child genius. This has cheered him up. La Fille thinks it's his birthday and keeps saying: "Bon anniversaire, Papa".

We're less chilled than we should be, but are off to celebrate a dear friend's birthday with a picnic in the park, so the London weather should sort that out.