The long drive home

Finally back in England after a very long and tiring drive across Europe.  In Switzerland there were police road-blocks, apparently directed at lorries, which created queues of more than 2 hours at each location.  We lost almost 5 hours in stationary traffic.  And then there was snow - freshly fallen at low levels.  Winter has come early to Europe this year.

Southern France was cold and damp but very welcome.  We didn't get as far as we'd intended, but stopped at a pretty little town in Alsace called Colmar.

It's a chocolate box town in the old centre, but it's not a museum - very much a working place.  There are some wonderful crooked buildings - photographed early in the morning before we set off again.  We needed to cover a lot of miles to make the ferry in time.  There were torrential rain storms and gales in northern France, which made for some tense moments.

But we're finally home, tired but triumphant.  I'm here for a month, but Neil left this morning to go back to Italy - not wanting to waste the studio space he's rented to work on a new piece of marble.  But he was back this afternoon because they wouldn't let him out of the country on my passport!  Moral:  never pack when you're tired!!