Afterwards we visited mum in the nearby care home on a day when she was not quite herself.

Much later in the day we dined in the Giggling Squid before visiting Theatre Severn to hear Kate Mosse ‘Unlocking the Secrets of the Labyrinth’. She shared her inspiration for her novel Labyrinth and the subsequent books in the trilogy and the book that didn’t quite fit in with her research.

Kate shared the beauty, history and mystery of Carcassonne and the Languedoc region from the 13th century wars of religion between Catholics and Cathars in south-west France to modern-day Grail legends and conspiracy theories.

The talk brought back fond memories of my visit to Carcassonne.

In the Roman era, the coast line lay at the foot of the hill and has withdrawn over the centuries. The theatre therefore once stood near the sea front and was built exploiting the hill slope for the terraces, divided into four sectors by radial stairways. The site was restored to its current state at the end of the 1930s when a series of Medieval houses that had surrounded it in the meantime were eliminated. The theatre’s dimensions are considerable: the maximum diameter is 64 metres, whilst the terraces are 15 metres high and can seat around 6,000 spectators. Constructed between the 1st and 2nd century under the wishes of Tergeste’s Q. Petronius Modestus, State prosecutor for Emperor Trajan, the theatre fell into oblivion following the town’s dwindling importance. It was subsequently rediscovered in 1814 by archaeologists.

Whilst on my London Eye experience I noticed this strange purple cow which I thought was a temporary children’s play area. When I got home and researched udderbelly.co.uk I realised that it was a temporary theatre! :

Underbelly is a UK based live entertainment company. We run Underbelly at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – one of the largest venue operations at the largest arts festival in the world – and Udderbelly Festival and London Wonderground at Southbank Centre in London. Our iconic upside-down purple cow venue – Udderbelly – is an annual fixture on both the London and Edinburgh skylines and 2012 was the inaugural year for our new London festival of circus and cabaret, London Wonderground.