Heading to the big smoke

Time to reenter civilisation
and travel to Marseille airport

Lots of bike riders still out on the road,
we drove by where the race starts
at Pont du Gard today

Can never get enough sunflowers

"The Last Selfie'

My ride home, on time

Goodbye France

Time to catchup on blogging

Buckingham Palace from the plane,
wonder if the Queen is out sunbaking in this heat?
Or getting ready to meet Boris
and invite him to form a new government?
(happened 3 hours later)

Caught the Heathrow Express
to Paddington Station

After a lovely evening to soak up the Provence twilight we all set our alarms for 5:45am with an advertised departure of 7am.

With a heavy heart and my final Provence cup of tea, I wave good-bye to the Provence sparrows and we hit the road. We are out the gates and it is 6:59am. Do you think we should wait a minute? Russ and Jane have planned a route to Marseille that takes into account road closures for the Tour de France, even the Pont du Gard gets into the limelight today.

I am blissfully sitting in the back with bird book, binoculars and camera taking in the sights along the way, glorious sunflowers, oops, I’m too slow, more sunflowers, too slow again, more sunflowers finally I capture them. They are facing us in the morning sun. This is interesting, the pollution is higher today so the cars have to reduce speed by 20km/hour. Now, lets pay attention to the birds, spotter Jane, Russ and myself all spy one each for that’s 3 new ones for a total of 19 species on the trip. Too soon we arrive at Marseille airport for the flight to London. Let's have one last selfie.

THANKS to Jane and Russ making me so welcome in their home and sharing a slice of Provence with me. What an experience!

A new airport, more French people pushing French people when will they learn? A quick cup of tea and its time to board. What is Joanna Lumley going on about, oh, it's the British Airways safety video with classic English actors in it, too funny.

Seat belt sign off, better catch up on blog posts or my Mum will wonder where I am. Its a quick trip over and before I know it we have landed. Now we all know how I love different transport options so its time to try out a train I have not done before, the Heathrow Express. The BBC news headlines are playing on the train, we are in another heatwave and Boris Johnson is now the prime minister of the UK. What is going on here? A very quick ride in comfort, totally worth it.

Onto the Bakerloo line - this is hotter than waiting in 38-degree heat for the Tour de France. At Charing Cross, Ladywell train in 3 minutes, run. Back to Ladywell Lodge in record time.