(no subject)

I've been away for a few days. SWMBO and I visited her parents' beach-house in the Algarve and kept them company when the weather was too bad to play golf. Now I have never and will never play golf, but bridge is rather a different matter. I've also come to the conclusion that I hate flying with a vengeance. Not that it is without benefit or excitement; for the plane's the acceleration and deceleration are fun: but the cattle-like treatment of passengers due to terrorists lurking in every nook and cranny really pisses me off. I dislike being herded into lines, x-rayed, questioned; and I especially dislike suffering the various indignities of customs and passport control, which admittedly also apply to train journeys. Given that I live in London anyway, and the weather there can be every bit as wet and foul as the weather in Vale de Lobo was, paying for the privilege of going abroad seems....I'm just a bad-tempered grump at heart really.

The visit was not without pleasures. Also staying with SWMBO's folks were chums of theirs: Barry, a retired consultant orthopaedic surgeon, and his wife Ros, a general practitioner. Both were very good company as were S's ma and pa.

Bah. Leaving Blighty always makes me uncomfortable. Small-minded though I might be, God's own country exerts a pull that other places just cannot compete with; though I would rather like to see my grandfather's grave in the English Cemetery in Kolkata (Calcutta as was), and flying seems the only way I could ever get out there.

Upon my return I find that God's own country is under a blanket of snow, and seems to have ground to a halt.

Back to practise. I have so much to do. Oh well.