My thousandth post

According to the Blogger stats, this is the 1000th time I have published a post on this blog.

Sunday

I’m composing this as a Google Document on my Chromebook at Heathrow, the Internet connection having failed me mid-browse, may continue writing on our next flight, which will be shorter than the one on Friday night.

We had a lovely day with Emma, Peter, Alexander and Thomas yesterday, jetlag notwithstanding, including a few hours out of doors in Bushy Park which I had also seen from 7000ft during our approach to London from the air. Other views worth mentioning were the dawn sky, that never fails to thrill me from the air, this time with pink tinged towering cumuli anvils over distant North Wales. I’d seen the Atlantic breakers crashing dramatically on the Irish coast in the early light, too, and the bare hills of Ireland, dusted with snow. Across the Irish Sea the Welsh coast looked similar and plenty of snow seems to have fallen on the Brecon Beacons. Then I saw the two suspension bridges over the Severn Estuary, the Thames Valley and the Weald.

That was all I had time to write at Heathrow, before eating a delicious salad for lunch at Terminal 2’s La Salle restaurant, garnished with a kind of red berries like cranberries, but with a pointed end, that I couldn’t identify. Preiselbeeren? I am now somewhere over Germany, mid-flight, with a view of clouds from my Lufthansa window seat. Chris has the seat in front of mine. We’ll land at Munich in about half an hour.

Alexander’s appearance and behaviour was most reassuring, yesterday. I watched him inject himself in the thigh with insulin and prick his own fingers, squeezing out the blood for sugar-level testing, all without fuss. He has rosy cheeks and bright eyes now, and his new equipment has caused a sensation among his friends. His mother is weighing every gram of what he eats, measuring every mouthful; it is just as well she is a metrologist by profession and such a stickler for organisational charts and to do lists, at home as well as at work. Ironically, it almost seems she was born for this. Alex’ father is a metrologist, too; the family makes a good little team!

Our grandsons

The boys demonstrated their drawing skills to me before lunch, a flying scene: helicopters, rockets and other aircraft in their picture, including an aerial Pegasus. On our afternoon walk too, we all had a dose of normality. The boys and their dad ran around with a rugby ball as if nothing were amiss, healthwise, we walked through the ornamental Water Garden where Canada Geese were waddling and Pokémon characters popped up, stopped for a sit-down at the Bushy Park café, and on the way home Thomas chatted to me non-stop about his life as a Year 1 schoolboy. He has a special T-shirt for gymnastics and can do a somersault in the air, so long as there’s the big mat to catch him when he lands. “My class is going to sing first,” he said, “in the Christmas play.”

Approaching Munich as the sun goes down

Yesterday evening Chris and I ate well at the Park Hotel’s restaurant, thus avoiding a hunt for a restaurant in the rain that was coming on. Then we slept for a good 12 hours.

Through a break in the clouds, I just spotted the Rhine. We are already descending to a lower flight level … and in the distance ahead, I can see the snowy peaks of the Alps!