Fine (as in the end, not fine, which would be 'bene')

Finally, FINALLY made it home late last night after over 24 hours of travel - our flight from New York was delayed, then they DOWNGRADED the plane to a 50% smaller one. If you were seated in row 14 or more, you were bumped, and we had row 15. Except they didn't really tell anyone this until about 10 minutes before boarding - we found out because Anthony went up to see if we could get onto another carrier and get home earlier. Since we didn't have seats, they wanted to fly us to Atlanta to spend the night there, then fly to Austin at 8 am the next morning. I could just imagine how well the kids would tolerate that. Staying in NY that night was not really an option since everything was full the next day. Anthony was very persistent and found the one agent who was willing to help us, and got us 4 seats on the tiny plane.

When we got on the plane, they told us it was too small to hold enough fuel for the whole trip to Austin, so we'd be stopping in Cincinnati for more fuel. Unbelievable. At least it was only a 20 minute stop, since no one was getting on or off. At least the kids slept the entire trip home. We heard lots of horror travel stories worse than ours.

Today was spent recovering, doing laundry, cleaning up the garden, and loving on the kitties. Tomorrow I go back to work and pick up Francesca. Tonight I cooked for the first time in weeks - grilled chicken with herbs, marinated red and yellow bell peppers (the first from the garden), insalata caprese - amazingly we still have some tomatoes on the vines. Anna and Colin are happy to be home in familiar surroundings, but already say they miss the ocean, the beautiful views, and the gelato. Me, too.

Photos, at last!
Here is the canal boat by the bridge in Evesham.


Here's me driving the boat with my dad.


The tour at Pembroke castle - a cold drizzly fun day.


Inside the castle keep. Can't you smell the damp and the history?


Nice pints of bitter in the pub garden.

More later...