Two accidents on way back from Rome

The camera on the Sony phone seems to have given up the ghost despite my best efforts. The screen is filled with a message in large font saying: ' No Pictures !'. I'll try to get it sorted.

In London stayed at the Sofitel St.James's - it's about as good a location as you can get in London - almost everything is within walking distance. The hotel has a great little restaurant that is rarely busy - although with a glass of Chablis costing £12 maybe that's not a surprise. The Royal Academy with its Byzantium exhibition is three minutes away from the Sofitel's front door. Prices have come off by about 30% and it's now getting to be reasonably priced even though it is the flagship of the brand.

It took two hours to get back from Rome by car yesterday afternoon. On the orbital motorway there was a pile up near the exit for Naples with a van that had hit the central barrier and then flipped over on top of a taxi. At the local turnoff a senior citizen had got confused a driven the wrong way onto the motorway , colliding head on with another car. The second accident of this type this year !

The garden centre came to trim the trees along the drive this morning. They pointed out that we are attracting porcupines who are coming to root up the bulbs that we planted - tulip and allium bulbs are an absolute delicacy for them. The beaver like animal the local farmer was complaining about is a coypu - a form of south American rodent.

Still haven't discovered what little animal has decided to nest in the engine compartment of the SUV - whatever it is has left a trail of olive stones around the oil filter.