From 'La Mole' to Penge

Well it may say a lot about me, but I like to have a contingency plan in place (when possible).

After a few internet searches, yesterday I managed to find an affordable Ryanair flight out of Turin on Boxing Day.
Great price (24.99 euros - hand luggage only).
The catch is that it is a flight to Bristol, and that on Boxing Day there are no trains running in England (apart from some local services).

But I can travel back from Bristol to London on a coach and I have my very own knight in shining armour, our lovely friend David who has very kindly volunteered to come and pick me up at the airport (and offered to stay with him - although I hope to make it back home the same day).

It is rather cold here (below zero - this morning was clear skies and a chilly 10.9 ºC (52 ºF) in the unheated bedroom).
It clouded over very quickly later and started snowing.
The snow didn't set and hope it won't because, if it did, the whole of southern England will stop and I don't have a contingency plan for that!

Probably once every two weeks, when I get off my train at Victoria in the morning the Orient Express is on the next platform; but this morning it was a steam train: lovely!
Needless to say this always makes going to the office a little bit harder.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
My week-end in Turin was OK.
On Sat afternoon Gatwick airport was rather crowded and there were long queues for the British Airways flights. 
Until recently there were separate Fast Bag Drop and check-in desks but on Saturday it was only one queue for everybody (apart from business class of course) regardless of whether you had already checked in online or not. Well at least the signs now say "Bag Drop": they dropped the Fast :-(
I checked in a suitcase containing a present for my brother (it was his birthday yesterday), a Floris aftershave lotion that a friend asked me to purchase ofr him and 7or 8 Christmas presents!! (I know it is a tad early, and sounds rather weird,  but I have to use my baggage allowance as it's hard to take everything back in one go at Christmas).
So I was quite upset when my case didn't turn up at Turin airport (I wasn't in the best of moods: the flight left 2 hours late and on the plane I was surrounded by a group of annoyingly loud middle aged men going hiking on the mountains).
Anyway, the case was delivered on Monday morning so all well that ends well, I guess!

I didn't do much in Turin; Mother invited my best friend to lunch on Sunday and cooked lots of food ("only" 4 starters, 1 "primo", 2 main courses, little French pastries - to celebrate my brother's birthday - and a cake).
No wonder I felt ill on Sunday evening!
Father looks rather frail - he's been suffering from aches and pains for quite a while now and had just spent 2 weeks in hospital. They didn't manage to reach a diagnosis (luckily it doesn't seem to be prostate cancer) - my goodness he's so thin (59kg, 180 cm).
I was quite sad yesterday afternoon when I said my goodbyes and couldn't help but wonder (and worry) what shape he'll be in when I visit again in October, or even if he'll be there at all :-(

The flight back was on time, I got my case straight away, and the train and bus home too. I was at home in record time and a few hours later very happily in Adrian's arms.