Sunday 9 February 2014

Erratic postings may soon resume!

Hello!  Or bonjour!

You may have noticed a slight hiatus in blogging... and part of the reason (the more interesting part, not the part about the overwhelming day job) is that we packed up the family when winter storms were at their worst, and stepped out the door, and 37 hours later we tumbled out of an A380 at Charles de Gaulle airport.  

Yes.  It takes more or less 37 hours to get from Wellington, New Zealand to Paris.  

But when you get to Paris at 7.00am and you can't get into your lovely apartment in Montmartre until 1.00pm (that's 43 hours since leaving home), you CAN wander the streets of Montmartre...

First stop... baguette!
Next stop... fromage to go with the baguette
Something for dinner
That would be NO!

We had a fantastic time in Paris.  Highlights included:

    ...A bike tour of Paris, which the girls LOVED
Miss 8 about to bike through the Louvre courtyards

...Getting up close and personal with gargoyles on Notre Dame
...The Eiffel Tower, by day and by night
We walked up those stairs on the left...700+!

We then headed south by train and car, and stayed on a farm called Mas Saint Germain in the Camargue National Park, where we could ride local Camargue horses around the rice fields, and see the flamingos in their breeding grounds.
 
A week on a canal boat (self-drive) on the Canal du Midi followed, from Argens-Minervois to Trebes (for a visit to Carcasonne) and back.  We had the most divine cassoulet in Trebes.

We briefly stopped in Bordeaux (definitely keen to go back again), Chinon in the Loire Valley, and Paris again, before heading to England and visits with friends and family.  And a wedding.
 
So that is part of the excuse for no blogging.  I won't go into the work-related part, except to note that I've been a bit busy.  However, I have made whitebait fritters, and Schweinbraten and Kartoffelkloesse, and now it's plum season, so I'll get cracking and pop up some recipes soon!