The first days of summer, and I'm going to Disneyland...

18/04 - Well, today was a lovely day in Geneva (apart from the fact that all Kelly's flight options are definitely cancelled). I woke up feeling approximately a billion times better than yesterday, had some leftover pizza for breakfast and went about rallying people for a picnic. This took longer then anticipated as (a) Dan Short was in St. Genis, (b) James was unreachable and (c) I downloaded Sim City 4 this morning and had to give it a try. Eventually we went and woke James up, fetched a load of food from our various flats, bought some cold white wine and a baguette and settled down in the park for a picnic and some Aerobie. Dan S. arrived after a while with a bottle of gin, and went and bought tonic and a pizza (apparently our incredible spread of sandwich ingredients wasn't good enough for him). I should mention where he bought his pizza - there is a shop on our road which is definitely closed on Sundays, but there was a kids party going on inside. Oblivious to the signs, Dan walked straight in and ordered a pizza from a child, who went about making it with the aid of an adult, apparently.

We stayed in the park until the sun sank behind the trees, investigated the garden behind our building and arranged to meet at Dan's for a film at half 9. I went home and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half, as I was full of wine and sleepy from the sun - I think I even got a little burnt through my (admittedly low quality gig) t-shirt. I was awoken by a phone call from Dan asking when I'd be over - I lied and said I was en route, gave myself a minute to wake up then popped round to watch The Science Of Sleep, a Michel Gondry film about a chap who can't separate his dreams from reality. I really liked it, thought it was innocent and whimsical, but I think some of the others may have been seeking more from it, by their reactions.

19/04 - So today I had to come up with and make a presentation by 3pm, but instead I prioritised sorting out this flight situation - I have to be back by 12 noon on Friday, no matter what, for Dad and Hattie's birthday party. I was on the eurostar website for ages trying to book a seat, but every time I got to the stage where I would actually book a ticket, it told me that the ticket I was looking for had gone in the time it had taken me to get this far. After a while I found their number and rang them instead, and after half an hour of Can't Get You Out Of My Head on repeat I got through, only to be informed that the only way I could get home on Thursday was to buy a ticket from Disneyland Paris to London, as there was room on that branch, and even then only on the 1937 train, getting in at 2112. I took this option, and paid £192 for the privilege. I then booked a much more reasonable TGV from Geneva to Paris for about £70, and now I have a backup plan in place should the flights still be cancelled on Thursday. I made sure that both of these tickets were fully refundable as well, just in case they lift the restrictions and I can get my flight.

I headed to the supermarket on the way home, and the temperature display at the pharmacy informed me that it was 26º today, which is crazy considering that on Friday night it was down to 4º. I think summer is definitely here, which has made me pretty happy in spite of the rather large outlay of cash earlier. I came home, made a delicious steak sandwich with red onions, mustard seeds and Café de Paris butter, and watched some of 'Bang goes the Theory' on BBC2, which was examining why volcanic ash is so dangerous to planes. It is now half 11 and I think I have run out of energy - I am going to try and get up early to go to the train station and pick up my ticket. I tried to do so on the way home, but the queue was out of the door, probably due to people returning from late ski holidays whose flights have been cancelled. Unlucky, at least Kelly and I have both been prevented from going away, not getting home.