Tuesday 28 June 2011

Road trip!

We came all the way north to Fontainebleau to see the King. But it's Tuesday. And he's not home. Oh well...


Wednesday 22 June 2011

Bonne vacances!

It truly is the 21st century my good friends when you find yourself on holiday with a laptop. In our defence we brought it for booking up hotels and checking routes etc, but I couldn't resist a sneaky peak onto the blog only to find that no-one has blogged *sad face* Bugger that thought I. I may be on my jolliest holidays but that doesn't mean I can't share this time with the world.

So we're in France, in a Provence village called Bonnieux. We're staying in a twisty huge old house that dates back to the 14th century. It's utterly amazing, and we have the most breathtaking view that photos do not even do justice. Seriously right now I'm watching the sunset over the Luberon valley and it is something very special indeed.

We're having an utterly fabulous time. We're so relaxed we're practically horizontal, we keep trotting out on adventures to all these really high up places that literally make you feel like you own the world:



Today we explored round an old quarry that was called Colorado Provencal, so amazing. Red, orange, yellow, white sand, green trees, beautiful. Then we went to a tiny village called Saignon and climbed up yet more steps (thighs of steel) and literally had a 360 degree view of all of this stunning part of France. Tomorrow we're hiring bikes and probably climbing more hills (buns of steel!) to see Lacoste and its famous castle.

A bonne vacances indeedy my friends. Salut!

Sunday 12 June 2011

Mr Blue Sky




We woke up really early this morning but we didn't really mind because Mr Sun was out! Yep after days and days of rain and cold weather it was utterly glorious to step outside and feel heat in the sun. I couldn't resist taking some photos of the blue sky with all these amazing clouds, they were just so cool. Fast forward a few hours and it's raining again, and it hasn't stopped raining since about 2pm. Ho-hum.

Friday 10 June 2011

Naked face!

I blogged recently about my crush being crushed by the optician. Well today I returned again but this time to get contact lenses again. I wore contact from 16-26 and then decided to go to glasses after lots of problems and eye infections. Fast forward 10 years, changes in technology, an urge to add funky sunglasses to my many accessories, and here I am. Naked of face. It's very strange. After 10 years of glasses it's very odd not to have that protective barrier over my eyes. I came out of the opticians still wearing them and it started raining and a splash went right in my eye! I nearly leapt out of my skin, so not used to that! Anyhoo, here's a piccie of me with naked face (and very bad roots, cannot wait to go to hairdressers tomorrow):



And of course being the fashion-ista that I am I instantly went and picked some fabby sunglasses for my hols:



And so to be completely vain. From 16-26 the bags under my eyes were probably there but not as bad as now. Or is it just that I'm so used to my glasses covering that kind of thing that my whole bare naked face is just alarming! Avoid magnifying mirrors methinks. What do you reckon, do I need to invest in some Touche Eclat or can I carry on wearing the cheap 5 quid stuff that seemed to do the job when I was wearing glasses?

And poor Wavey! Not only did he have to adjust to me switching my glasses from red to black, now he has a bare naked face girlfriend! He's slow to adjust to change...but so far so good...

Wednesday 8 June 2011

A view from Wednesday

Libraryland:


Homeland:

Monday 6 June 2011

Rent-a-kid

This weekend we had friends staying with us from the far off Southern lands of London town. Friends consisted of mummy and little dot, age 3. Arrival time: Saturday morning, departure time: Sunday evening. We hadn't really made any firm plans as were waiting to see what the weather was going to be like (that would be utter miserable cold and cloudy rubbish). Saturday was fine as first of all calming down had to happen,"I want to go hoooooome" is not how our guests usually greet us as they walk through the door. Luckily there was a magic fairy house in the room they were staying in that soon distracted from thoughts of wanting to depart our lovely abode so suddenly after arrival. A brisk walk up to the chilly duck pond armed with bread to feed the fattest ducks in the world (fact - they eat literally half of our village's consumption of bread), a quick fall in the duck pond (HA!) that thankfully was greeted with big pride rather than big tears, and a slightly muddier brisk walk back to the warm house before tea, bath and bed.

And so to Sunday. Despite the fact that we started the day at 7.40 in the AM - say what?! for the first time in our lives Wavey and I suggested a kid friendly location. Namely a local park that happens to house lots of fun stuff like little trains for little people, and entertainment (more of that later), and Butterfly World! Oh my word so cool! Well actually not cool at all, more like a tropical paradise where the most amazing butterflies just fly around and flutter past you and dance around your feet, and the most beautiful hothouse flowers, and ponds with giant fish and waterfalls...oh my oh my, it was so exciting for me, imagine how much little dot loved it! At one point I was carrying her round through the reptile house and there was a red snake and she was so excited that she was all like tensed up and about ready to pop - so sweet. Couple of photos for you to enjoy now:





From there we played on the swings and on the slides before someone told us about the Punch and Judy show that was about to take place. Off we duly trotted to enjoy some (extremely non-PC) entertainment. Cue lots of shouting from hyperactive kids, a very violent Punch knocking Judy to the ground, the LOUDEST snapping crocodile I have ever seen (a little boy next to me was literally terrified, he jumped back into his mummy's arms and his eyes were huge, I predict nightmares for weeks to come), the policeman who beat Punch with a frying pan...it was, I have to say, pretty scary. And I'm big. Imagine how scary it was to the little people!

All in all a fun day out was had by all. And so it got me to thinking. I reckon if you don't have any little dots yourself you should be able to borrow one, just for a couple of hours, so that you can go to these places and do these things cos let's face it, you can't just turn up to that kind of stuff as 2 adults (well you could in Butterfly World) as people will think you're seriously dodgy. Not a good look. But I think there should be some kind of rule to the borrowing. Like only from 11am onwards so that you can enjoy the usual weekend lie-in, and at the first sign of tears and tantrums the parents should step in to take over. Seems like a fair deal to me.

Friday 3 June 2011

Little Miss Sunshine

The past two days have been utterly fabby. The sun has appeared and it's been hot hot hot. It's a total bummer that now on Friday we're heading towards the weekend and the weather forecast is not that great. But hey, I'm feeling good that for the past 2 days we've been able to enjoy it as much as we can. Each lunchtime has seen us outside on our green picnic blanket, sat on the wee hill outside work, enjoying our sandwiches and basking in the rays. It's been really hard to motivate ourselves to go back inside the gloom that is libraryland - they really do need to work on some better lighting and windows for the peeps.

I've also had my breakfast outside both days! How utterly decadent is that?! The early morning sunshine has been lovely and warm, and even though the new picnic bench was slightly covered in dew it wasn't going to stop me. It truly felt like I was on holiday as breakfasting outside is something that I totally like to do when I'm en vacances as the French say. I'm allowed to say that as in oooh about 10 days we will indeedy be on our vacances in the lovely France. I seriously cannot wait!! Worked out today that we've not had that much time off since Christmas, a few days here and there but not a good chunk of relaxing lushness. But we soon will. We're setting off on the Wednesday evening, winding our way down France to our house that we've rented for a week in Bonnieux. Then we've got another week to wind our way slowly back up to our next destination of Honfleur, before heading back to Calais and the tunnel home again. Heaven!

As is usual at the first sight of the sunshine I've slapped the suntan lotion on and basked in all the glory of the heat. For someone who mainly only gets lots of freckles I am a total sun 'ho! I love it! Wavey is not so good in the sun, which should be interesting as we head towards the South of France...

Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share my sun joy. Hope you all are enjoying the sunshine wherever you might be. And let's hope that once this weekend has gone by where it goes back to being a wee bit chilly that we'll get this heatwave that they keep selling us...another BBQ summer anyone...?