Back to earth...

Playlist
Giuliani – Complete guitar Concertos
Various – Shine On
Various - Shuffleplay
The Crimson Jazz Trio – King Crimson Songbook Vol 1
Frank Black – Fast Man Raider Man
OSI - Free

Up early and waiting for the owner of the villa to turn up at the agreed time of 8:30 to pick up the keys and return our deposit...

He finally arrived just before 9, throwing off our timing a little but still leaving us plenty leeway...

We said goodbye to Veleso as we drove down the mountain for the last time and then on into Como, where we filled the tank and I grabbed a couple of croissants for our breakfast, which we ate as we drove...

A frankly hellish journey to Bergamo airport followed – I’ve never seen so many slow moving, huge lorries on what would have been just about classed as “A” roads in the UK....

We arrived at the Hertz drop off point around 11:40 and were taken by the bumpiest minibus in Italy to the terminal building, where check-in had already been open for 30 minutes or so...

We checked in the cases and then went to security. I had a half-drunk bottle of Diet Coke in my bag. I was asked to drink from it to prove it wasn’t actually some kind of liquid explosive. Then, once I’d proved this, they put it in the bin anyway...

In the usual stramash for seats, we managed to get ones at the wing emergency doors – with extra leg room – but extra responsibility in an emergency – but I figure if the plane’s going down we’ll be killed anyway...

On the flight I started reading Anne’s Nick Hornby book and managed 150 of the 250 pages by the time we touched down at Prestwick – here’re some pics of us coming in to land...






Just as we entered the arrivals hall, the fire alarm went off, so we had to stand for 30 minutes back out on the tarmac before going through the hall again...

Finally, we were out and being taken in a considerably more comfortable minibus to the car park...

A 90 minute non-stop drive back Crispycat Towers went without a hitch apart from a little congestion in Glasgow and we were home just after 5pm...

I transferred the 480 pics and 3 films from the memory card to the computer and we looked through them all...

Four of the six CDs I was expecting from Russia had arrived in our absence – the enterprising Postie had secreted them in the cat flap....

After a snack, we listened to the Crimson Jazz Trio as we drove out to Julia’s in Armadale to pick up Meg the Black Cat – it seems I’d spent almost all day driving...

Meg was fine and Julia was on good form, offering us some ribs in her delicious home made plum chilli sauce...

I had a couple of Cokes while the ladies ploughed through their usual bottle of wine..

We got back home with Meg around 11:30...

Holiday over...

Good one...

Highlight of the Day : The Return of Meg the Black Cat...