Nice finish

Hmm, now what did we do for the last two days of Fil, Mill and David's visit? I know one of them we went into the old town of Nice.

On the last day, we had a choice of snow or shopping. Well, which one do you think we'd do? We went shopping in Sanremo. Apparently there's a beautiful old town in the centre there. Next time we have to try harder to find it!

Sunshine as soon as the school holidays finished.

It rained non stop on the day, so apart from a couple of shops, it was a wash out. My jeans and shoes were thoroughly soaked. We need to go shopping again to buy gum boots, and a longer coat.

Really nice to have our guests, and please visit again! Of course, like you knew it would, the very day that Fil Mill and David took off, the weather was picture perfect blue skies. And this the day after most flights were cancelled due to the conditions.

Montpellier

Downhill on the roller coaster!

Day 6: Montpellier


After all the promises, we finally got onto the TGV! It looks very space age inside, for someone who grew up watching Space 1999. The carpets etc are starting to look a bit beaten after 20 or 30 years of service. It's hard to tell how fast you're going. It's much quicker than the car.

High speed bend.

Montpellier a medium large city, very beautiful. The town centre is mostly closed to cars. There are loads of new trams rolling through. The kids had a great time on the mini roller coaster.






Day 7: our last day! Everyone went to the fantastic gardens in town. Me and Ollie had to leave for the train. We stopped in Marseille, and scootered around for a couple of hours.

Praying the wind doesn't change, again. Montpellier.

Another pretty town centre, Montpellier.

Ollie being a pest, Montpellier.

Pont du Gard and Uzes

Getting Ollie to pose for a shot, Pont du Gard.

Day 4: Pont du Gard.

Marie, Fil and the boys, Pont du Gard.

It's amazing this still exists 2000 years on. It's an aqueduct sitting over a river. Amazing engineering with all the perfect angles, arches and heavy strong pointed sections sitting in the river.






It carried water 50km from Uzes to Nimes with a tiny drop, feeding water by gravity. At Nimes, you can see the part that distributed the water. It's ancient Super Mario plumbing still amazing.

Uzes, the main church.

Uzes is a beautiful town.





Day 5: same again but with Mill and Dave. Mill was sick yesterday.

Walking around looking for somewhere to eat, Uzes.

Mill in Uzes.

Gargoyles in Uzes.

Aigues Mortes

Day 3: Aigues Mortes - a medieval fotified town.

Aigues Mortes

All the walls are still in excellent condition, and make for quite a sight. Me and Ollie got there on the bus, so got in a bit earlier. We scootered all around.

Scooter boy rolling out the back of town.

Later me and Ollie went ice skating. He held my hand and pulled me over. Once with a thud, where all the onlookers laughed hard, and once where I landed on Ollie, and no-one laughed. No one was badly hurt.

The back of town, Aigues Mortes.

Inside the walls, Aigues Mortes.

Avignon and the palace of the popes

Day 2: Avignon and the palace of the popes.

A home fit for a king, I mean a pope.

One guy from France was elected pope, and then refused to turn up for work. He wanted to stay in France. For a century odd, the popes ruled from Avignon, and built 2 large castles, which were linked to make a huge one. Towards the end, there was a Rome pope and a French pope competing with each other. A Roman one won out eventually.

Inside is not bad even after being pillaged a lot.

We got to walk all over from the treasure room, where the goods were stored under the floor, to the kitchen. The kitchen was as at least as big  as our living room, and the ceiling was 3 or 4 stories up. This makes it easier to smoke things, or store things. It must have been stunningly luxurious, fitting of the most important, but extravagant.


It rained all day, so the rest of them didn't go on the famous Pont D'Avignon, shame about that.

Day 1, Nimes.

Nimes stadium, more amazing stonework.

Day 1: in the town centre of Nimes. The kids took a couple of rides. Then we walked around the ancient Roman stadium.

The stadium holds about 20,000 people.

Come on ref, been doing it all day!

The boys learned all about the lives of the gladiators, and their promise to work hard, and accept death by the sword. We saw all the different types from the dudes with the simple swords, to the man with a trident-spear and fishing net. I tried to skip the paintings of the prisoners being fed to the animals.

Not everyone died: gladiators were expensive to train from scratch, and to kit out. So if just wounded, if they'd done well, their lives would be spared.

They still use the stadium today for bull fighting and concerts.

Young tourists fishing for crocodiles.

The symbol of Nimes is a crocodile chained to a tree. So that's why there's a fishing game with crocs here.

Merry Christmas!

Around the dinner table.

Waking up on Christmas day is the best. Louis woke up first. He'd stayed in our bed again, despite all the warnings about Santa bringing some crap gifts if he kept doing that. He got up and danced around the tree seeing all the presents. We woke up Ollie gently. He seemed to snap out and move quickly for the tree. The scooters were the main thing, but the reaction was better for the Lego cars. Louis kept repeating, oh, ahh, this is so cool! The Lego car was a type you can roll back to wind it up. Fun even for the grown ups. I was more excited about the scooters, as this means I get to ride my own one again.

The cousins.

We went to some friends place for Christmas. We cooked some meals, they did too, so we had about one main per person, and 3 different desserts. We ate the leftover roast we cooked for another 2 meals between the 7 of us for example.

Making things with the magnet set.

Then we set off for Nimes. Me and Marie had organised a house. It's much cheaper than any hotel, had 3 bedrooms, plus you can cook your own food. Much easier with kids.




It was on the hill of Mont Duplan out along the road to Uzes, about ten minutes walk into town, and the train station. Just nearby was a great kids park with mini roads for kids to go fast and learn road safety.

Ollie the scooter hero on the nearby road circuit.

Ollie the froggo.

Nimes is a great town to spent a few days exploring, and is central for visiting lots of towns. Highly recommended!

Biot

The kids try to enjoy a fake plastic ice rink.

If this was a normal word, you'd pronounce it as "B.O.". Luckily though, Biot is pronounced "be-ott". A truly bad name is the town of Montcuq. In French, it is pronounced the same as mon cul, meaning my arse (like "mon coo"). This has prompted the mayor of Montcuq to invite everyone to come and see Montcuq. You too can view Montcuq, along with everyone else, thanks to the wonders of the internet.

Glassblowing: quite an art to catch it from sagging too much.

Biot is famous for glass making. It's also got a great little old town packed with crafts and goodies for every tourist. You can watch the glass blowing. Ollie stayed there for some time.


We also went ice skating on plastic ice. This stuff is not slippery, and shaves off into tiny pieces that get into your clothes and go all over the place. On the plus side, even though it was free, you can pretty much have the rink to yourself.

Nice day at the Christmas markets

Flying high

We spent the day in town. Trouble is, with the kids, you don't get to see much, as we got stuck with all the rides they needed to do. Lucky for the ferris wheel, Fil, Dave and Mill got to look over town a bit.



On the 2nd last day, we went straight into the old town area, and avoided the rides. There are a lot of shops, so me and the boys went to the kids playground to let off some energy.

Waiting to go up up up.

The trapeze was not for Ollie who went for the walk thing.

Got to visit the old town, on the 2nd last day here.

Chatting up the guards

Mill leads into turn one, a touch of understeer.

Can I stay at your place? Outside Albert's

 Everyone wants to go to Monaco when they visit. After 5 trips, we finally discovered the old town, which is beautiful.



Mill took the chance to chat to a handsome guard with a load of medals pinned on.



The boys and Mill got to race in the miniature grand prix.



Sadly most of Monaco is taken by a lot of ugly modern buildings. This describes a lot of towns.

Monaco: some parts look good.

Felicity David and Mill visit

Ready for takeoff!

Same same but different.

 The very first day that Fil and co arrived, everyone was tired as. Noone had slept very well on the plane. Mill only slept 3 or 4 hours the whole trip.





We had an easy day after the long flight. We just went down to the beach for a walk, and to throw stones into the water.

Kids defy death on the rocks

I'm in the CP!!! The boys show Mill their school.

The update before Christmas

If you can keep a secret, the boys are getting scooters. Santa will delivering those in only a week. He'll be leaving some chemical snow footprints that don't melt, from the front door to the tree.

Up in the mountains, there's plenty of white. Hope it stays a bit cold up there for our visitors! Down here it's 13 and almost balmy.

So here's the news:

Giving away some work shirts
I had a few old shirts with work logos which I never wear. It was hard to give them away. They were size medium, but almost no-one in the team would fit them. Medium in Australia is about XL in local sizing. One guy is 6ft/183cm and 72kg for example. Seems skinny, but the BMI calculator I used says he's right in the middle of healthy.

Paying the electricity bill
Sadly we'd just received an electronic remote key from our bank, and been locked out of our account. So I:
1. go to the electrical company website, enter all details, press pay. Then get asked for code received by sms. But the phone number is old.
2. ring up the bank to unlock the online access, register the electronic key device, turn it on, enter my pin, get a one time key, enter that all good. Each time I log on, it asks me for the name of my old cat.
3. repeat step 1 as it's been a while
4. get back online at the bank to phone number. It's not changeable online.
5. Try download the form to fax my new phone number.

On the to do list: installation of a giant pair of underpants.

6. get latest Acrobat,
7. log in and try getting the form again.
8. Give up and mail a cheque


The Space Smoker
When we first got here, the messages they put up at work seemed a bit weird. Now they're just plain funny. Recent announcements of upcoming events, in writing, on the walls:
- Wash Ecological Automobile
- Cover of the space smoker
- The Christmas chalet suggests you discovering our range of residential products.
European English speakers all understand each other. The native speakers speak funny it seems. We've got an Indian, a Scotsman, and an me at work. No-one speaks like they speak on TV, and less so like the locals. It's hard for them to tune into 3 different accents.

Things now in place: restoring company sells bread.

Olives pulped, and in the press.

Last weekend
And in other news, we went to visit Marie's cousin Jelena and her family. It was a lot of fun as far as I could tell. We stopped at Pavia on the way through. It's got an amazing bridge, and a lovely old town centre.

Jean Louis, Romain, me, Louis, Marie, Ollie, Leah and mixer.

The weekend before
We went to see some olive presses. We watched the crusher, the mixer, and finally the press. The boys had a good time, and it was fun watching the olives go round. We tasted a bit, straight out of the mixer.

Louis rides again!

Louis's bike in green, 1.6km each way, v. good!

Louis rode properly for the first time. He can pedal, and stop. He can't start, but he's nearly doing that.

It was about 3km all up. I ran along behind him, ready to catch, and broke my back a bit holding the handlebars through the skinny bits, and on crossings.

Tourrettes sur Loup

Another day, another village. Tourrettes sur Loup is beautiful, perched up on a mountain, and in really good condition. Seems there's several places in town for sale, so am continuing to dream about retiring in a place like this.

Tourrettes sur Loup

The girls from school.

Robina and Leonie.

And lastly, today I scored 100 on a diabetes test. Apparently that's good, and I've never got 100 for a test before. No you can't cheat. Apparently if you get 200 you need to worry.

Bernauer Strasse

Bernauer Strasse now has a fantastic green belt, lovely.

Sunday - we went to Bernauer Strasse to see the open air wall museum. It is well worth a look. They have a section of wall, a watch tower and the no-man's land, all as it was - scary! They explain people were forced to move from their houses, then the windows were bricked in, then the wall started to develop from there. The wall with the rounded top, fiendishly hard to clumb, is about the third or fourth generation of improvements.

The posts on the left mark the wall, the grass is no mans land.

We flew home and started work/school Monday.

Original part of wall, no mans land, grim lights, watch tower.

Escape tunnels are marked. The round building is/was a church.