This week I'll be mostly on a boat

"It's very very nice here"
Bown 2002

Right now I should be sitting at home, with my feet up in front of the fire, reading Autosport.  Instead, I'm on a boat half way across the English Channel.

Why?

Well, yesterday evening I should have been sitting on a plane, with my seat-belt on and my seat-back upright, reading Andrew Benson, Freakonomics, and Bel's Randomness on the Kindle.  Instead, I was on a train from Southampton to Chandlers Ford.

Why?

In a word - fog.

The fog has rolled in across the Channel Islands for a few days, and there is mayhem.  All the flights have been cancelled.  There have been no newspapers (or Autosport) since the mail plane can't land.  You've got hundreds of people at dozens of airports all thinking the same thing - catch the boat.  While BA, Flybe and Blue Islands might be making a loss, the cabbies at Poole harbour and doing a roaring trade between station and ferry terminal.

This week I'll be mostly writing again

The pen is mightier...

Erm, hello.  Again.

It's been 7 months since my last 'Mostly'.  In fact, now that I look, I see it's been 6 months since my last vaguely meaningful post of any kind (other than a quick bit of wedding anniversary prose and a Christmas video).

So first, let me say 'thanks' to all of you who wished me a happy birthday 5 months ago.  Sorry I ignored the lot of ya, but I was embarking on an episode of cyber-phobia.  Not for the first time.  The less said about it the better.  Probably.

This week I'll be mostly mentioning the war

Don't mention the war.

We've had quite a few Germans round our place recently, along with some Spanish and Swiss. We prefer the Germans, which is not to say that we don't like the Spanish and Swiss, we just ... prefer the Germans.

However, there has been a sense of nervousness at times. Like when we were watching a Miss Marple with references to a character killed at Dunkirk. Or explaining Jersey Liberation Day. Or Abbie asking what Hitler's first name was. Or finding a World War 2 Tanks homework laying on the table. Ridiculous things to be nervous about, I know.

Yesterday Abbie mentioned the war, "and I think she got away with it". In fact, we had quite an interesting and enlightening conversation around the dinner table, which I will not be making any observations about, witty, or otherwise.

Today our German house guest told us that this morning she had seen a very English 1970s sit-com where a hotel manager is incredibly rude to the German guests. Ah yes, we know it well, we told her. After a number of weeks of nervousness, it was most liberating to launch into my best Basil Fawlty impression: "Don't mention the war, I mentioned it once and I think I got away with it."

I did stop short of doing the other classic line though. Altogether now: "You started it... You invaded Poland!"