The Sigla Blog

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last week, I got so carried away about my holiday I didn’t even think to mention my impending absence with a virtual ‘back in a bit’ notice. I got back late last night from the South of France and yet again I question why any of us want to live in Ireland. It’s cold, expensive and oh, cold (weather is a big issue for me, alright?). Yesterday I was getting sunburnt reading Simone DeBeauvoir’s The Mandarins, today I’m shuffling about with a couple of layers on wading through a tsunami of emails and post.

It’s not just the weather in France though, it’s just the general… feel of the place, the way people eat, their approach to drinking, the language, the attitude, the laidbackness, even the way they drive for Christ’s sake. We were on route to Marseille until Aer Lingus decided halfway in to the flight that there was “something wrong with the oil gauge” and that we were turning back. There was a lot of “it’s not serious” and “nothing to worry about” muffled Captain-speak but by the time we were on the approach back to Dublin, there was actually a funny sound emanating from somewhere in the bowels of the plane, and not from my overactive imagination. Normally, I don’t mind this sort of stuff - and if it was Ryanair, they’d just have flown on, determined to keep their squillon-flights-a-day profiteering on track - but it meant landing in darkness and my first experience of driving on the wrong side of the road. I cursed the whiskey I had on the plane (just one, mind) as it was later, I was tired and was not prepared for the dark, the three lanes, and people zipping past at 170km per hour.

Eventually, we made it to a little spot just outside Beziers and began a week of reading, wine-drinking, marvelling at the new size Guardian (European edition), swimming in the sea, trying out my desperate school French (I kept saying ‘Bonjour/Bon Soir’ when taking my leave of someone) and generally being blogless, email-less and computer-less. It was just what I needed.

Made it to the citadel in Carcassonne and I can see why Kate Mosse found it so inspiring for her writing. Wandered around the gorgeous fishing port of Sete, the sleepy cobbled streets of Beziers and upped the pace a bit with a drive down to Barcelona to see a friend.

Reluctantly, I returned last night to the cold again but a warm welcome from Disco Fred, who is looking a little chunkier thanks to doggy-sitting from my aunt who gives him tea and cornflakes for his breakfast.