h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was away in London last weekend and tomorrow I'm off to Wexford for a week, so I've left my tagline as "on holidays" even though I'm in work today.

The place is deserted. More than half the staff are away on holidays. I drove into work today, and there was no traffic at all, so obviously the rest of Dublin is on holiday too.

We'll spend the next week in our mobile home in the "Sunny Southeast". I hope it lives up to its name. I've got a few do-it-yourself jobs lined up, such as putting new hinges on a shed door and adding metal struts to a wooden table to hold it together. Other than that, it will be a week of walking along the beach, eating and drinking, reading books, and enjoying the peace and quiet.

I've a collection of Daphne Du Maurier books to get through, a guide to Proto-Indo-European, I'm re-reading Love in the Time of Cholera and I might even treat myself to one of Ian Banks's non-science fiction books.

That sounds lovely - I wish I had time for Proto-Indo-European right now.

Have a great holiday! Hope the weather favours you!

(And take us a picture for . We love your photography.)

For the last of our three one-week holidays, we hoped to fly to somewhere sunny but there are no cheap packages available. A friend has kindly offered us her house in the South of France, so we're going there. We'll fly to Gerona in Spain and hire a car. It's only an hour from there on the motorway. I have to meet her today and collect the keys.

Safe journey


lil x

I looked up the météo for Argelès (first place that sprang to mind in that area) - 28 - 29 degrees for the rest of this week.

Have a safe journey and a nice time. Is the house near the sea?

The house is inland a bit. About 10 minutes drive from the sea

If your heading out there this weekend you might need a lot of patience on the motorways... It's the last weekend of the summer holidays over here and there are going to be a hell of a lot of people heading back northwards... (Hopefully most of them will already be north of you - but it's going to be busy out there!)

I would think most people will be going to other way, but yes, it will be busy.

I'll be driving from Gerona to Argelès-sur-mer.

Ha! I guessed right!

Last time I was there the kids were about 2 and 4, and the third one not even born!

I've been in the Pyrenees before, but never in this particular valley, south of Perpignan. We might take the opportunity to visit Carcassonne, and to go on the Petit Train Jaune up to Saillagouse.

(It's conspiracy country - home of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail"; Templars, Arks of Covenants, secret treasures and so on)

Ah, Cathar country - lots of history there. Albigensian crusades and the rest.

Carcassonne is always worth a trip.

I visited Albi once, and was horrified by the aggressive bulk of the cathedral, built to celebrate the violent suppression of the Albigensians. It says (as though in large letters) Don't Mess With the Church. Inside it has a sub-Bosch painting right beside the chancel, showing insect-like devils forking unbelievers into fiery pits.

I've probably been to some of those, but it was many years ago. We were very young and all I remember of Carcassonne is that we started our family there. I suppose we ought to go back. Middle son (who was conceived somewhere else) went on a choir tour of that area a couple of years ago. Some very notable churches, abbeys, cathedrals etc with good acoustics. And they had a barbie on the beach on the last night.

Albi, Narbonne, Beziers, Montpellier...

Nowadays they're all just the names of towns where we have clients and I am on the phone to them regularly.

Actually there are cheap flights from Strasbourg to Montpellier. Must look into that for a short break.

Sorry to ramble on, Gnomon - do have a great holiday down there!

Started our family...

I don't know where my first daughter was conceived, but I know the decision to start a family was made as we watched the Berlin Wall being torn down.

R, I can't say a good word for the Christian Church's treatment of the Cathars, but I am somewhat suspicious of descriptions of how perfect the Cathars were.

Certainly they had their quirks ...

They weren't all Perfecti - most were Credentes (Credenti?), who were allowed to marry and have children, otherwise they would have died out naturally - I suppose a bit like the Shakers, who continually had to recruit. As far as I understand it, they thought this was hell and the church a sort of hell's constabulary.

Been a few years since I visited that end of the country, Carcasonne is definitely worth a visit... A bit 'touristy' once you get inside the medieval city walls though...

There are quite a few fortified mountaintop villages (some completely ruined) in that area that are worth a look as well.

If you're planning on taking a trip to Lourdes while you're in the south of France, my one word of advice would be DON'T!!! Not only is the town an extremely tacky tourist trap but if you enter the grotte (the religious site) with open eyes and an enquiring mind you'll pretty soon discover that (a) The church is ripping people off financiallyand (b) even if the water from the spring has got magical/religious healing properties - the stuff you're getting won't have!

I've been in Lourdes before, Whisky, and that wasn't my impression. The town is tacky, but the religious site itself didn't charge anything to the people praying there, and the water was from the source was piped into taps which you could fill up from free of charge. I thought the religious site was rather tastefully done and carefully didn't claim any miracles.