One thing I noticed while in London were the preparations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Despite having worked at the BBC for years I am so grateful that now in Lyon the royal celebrations will not loom quite so large.

I had to pop back to London for a meeting at Euronews’s London office – which is this:

And not this:

While in London I made new Euronews friends and also saw my sons and dad as well as some former BBC colleagues.

Speaking of my ex-colleagues you may remember they bought me a leaving gift in January.

Unfortunately, because they bought it on the Printemps UK site the goods could only be delivered to a UK address.

So I finally got to pick it up and with the weather the way it was in London on Thursday, the timing was perfect. Merci beaucoup.

So back to Lyon with the bare essentials.

Some Vélo’v’s this morning had adverts for le train on them. Pointing out it’s a long way to Paris by bike seemed a bit unfair just over a month before the Tour de France.

I then spotted these striking colours outside the Green Cube. A nod to our new owners?

We need to talk about the OFII – the French office for immigration and integration. It is through this department that we had our recent lung x-rays and medicals.

Because we were not granted our passeports talentes we have various stages to go through to validate our year-long visas.

For me that means doing something called La Formation Civique.

Now I have been invited to a half-day to sign my contract of integration, do a French test, watch a presentation about integration and an interview to evaluate my needs.

At least it’s not far from the OFFI-ce.