Stranded 2

It all goes on. One family has gone to school this morning thanks to Mr Jonah and his wife. The other is currently freaking out down on the land - at least one bit of it is. (A beautiful and interesting child, this bit of the family, she is dramatic at the best of times and this isn't the best of times. Granny has memories of walking her round Kew Gardens as a screaming baby, years ago. What changes.) The poor kids are homesick and want their mother. The British government is bringing in the navy to help but meantime everyone has to wait; first get yourself to Spain. But how? Beloved son and family are on a flight to Madrid on Friday. But getting from Madrid is the problem. Granny and son spent nearly two hours this morning trying to book ferries, buses or trains to ferries: or alternatively to Paris. In vain. Websites where they were working at all would take you so far then throw you off. The Spanish bus site surpassed itself - once finally accessed - by refusing to take an English credit card for 3 passengers at once and when attempts were made to book singly the website promptly went down. So that was that.

It would all be easier if Granny and son weren't still suffering from the ocular bug. Granny's eyes continue to stream, so do Beloved son's, she coughs, aches and changing herself from lenient granny to quasi parental dragon at times is not difficult but painful, just the same. Beloved, meanwhile, continues to do his thing as ever, (turning out nice meals though, even if Granny does have to remind him that plain rice in children's terms means just that: ie no tossing in olive oil, insertion of various vegetables, etc etc, and expecting them to eat it just the same.) Granny is reminded of the satirical poem about the young Werther's suicide, where his fiancee, Charlotte, 'just goes on cutting bread and butter'.

Thia is a mini story in the scheme of things, even in the scheme of this particular crisis....but typical enough probably. Children are probably freaking out all over the world. Sta Luego.