It Never Rains But it POURS

It's the day before our mega train journey to England: a long-awaited trip to see the "folks back home".
Inevitably, therefore, Clause 1.1 of "Sod's Law" has been activated: namely, anything that can go wrong, will.

The list of problems so far looks something like this:
1/ It is day 9 of a national rail strike here. We won't know until this evening if our train to Paris will be circulating or not. And even if it is, for the past two days, strikers have been blocking the access to high speed trains at Toulouse station. Yesterday, they had to be forcibly removed by riot police... and the train set off two hours late.

2/ Thankfully, nobody can tell me "I told you so" with any credibility, because, had we decided to go by plane, things would be even worse. An erupting volcano in Iceland has brought all air traffic to a halt in nothern Europe for an indefinite period of time.
Yup, this sure is a great week for travel, folks!

3/ LB has had a fever of 40° for the past 36 hours. After rushing into work this morning on the basis of a sliver of professional conscienciousness (I couldn't just abandon all my half-finished projects and disappear for 10 days..), I finally had to cave in to the inevitable at midday and rush to creche to pick up a burning hot and doleful looking baby. He is now sleeping fitfully. Not quite sure what to do: however, a call to the doctor has confirmed the inevitable: this being half-term week, nobody is answering the phone. The doc is undoubtedly in the Pyrenees or by the sea, and hasn't left a forwarding address...

4/ No sooner back from my rescue mission to retrieve LB, creche calls to let me know that BB is "not himself". He is clingy, upset and refusing to eat. He is - in the wise words of the nursey nurse - "probably coming down with something".

5/ There have been 3 cases of chickenpox at creche in the past week. Current evidence suggests that my kids have jumped on this particular bandwaggon.

6/ Refer to points 3, 4 and 5 above to understand why not a single bag is packed, no lists have been made, and current departure preparations are stagnating at 0.


Perhaps you won't be hearing from me for a week or so. Perhaps you will.
Oh, the suspense of it all!