Missing home

A whole week in the UK, and although the visit here has been constructive I am missing out on major events in France.
The first is that Tam caught his first mouse. Now I know what it must be like for a parent to miss the first step or the first tooth poking through. Ok, so maybe it's not quite as exciting as that would be for a parent, but it just brings home how much I miss being in france with Neil.
The second is that apparently our ducks have started laying eggs. Neil said there was complete panic in the chicken run this morning as one of the ducks tried to go against the flow of chicken traffic descending the chicken house ramp so that she could go in and lay her egg. He said it was like rush hour on a tube station platform. I've never had a duck egg before and I look forward to trying one produced at home.
I have been working at a conference in London on Afghanistan. The security for the event was something else, and we all had to be checked prior to working there. I thought I might get in trouble with secret services for giving a British address and get found out, but I think they had bigger things on their mind. We were told that London is on high alert at the moment for imminent threat, which I found a bit disconcerting until it occured to me that as I was working at an event where literally no stone was being unturned, it would probably be easier to attack something elsewhere.
Still, it gave me a chance to coo over the sniffer dogs and then following the rulebook for every trained paramedic I found the canteen and coffee facilities and glued myself to them for the duration of my working day with heat magazine and a good book.
Some bright spark had given me radio number 666, which again I thought may bode badly but luckily none of the attending heads of state decided to 'pull a sicky' and we were left to our own devices with nothing to do other than hand a couple of plasters. Result!
I go home on Wednesday (forcast snow allowing) and I can't wait.