Happy New Year 2011 ! I wish you all a Good Health and a Clear Mind
Finally back in Paris around lunch time after spending the New Year in Rennes with close friends. My dear dear friends braved the cold to collect us from Rennes' train station around 11 pm! ... then opened up their cosy home. Tis was followed by a wonderful two days wandering the street of an ancient pirate's bastion : St Malo. We had 'moules frites' (muscles & fries) on the esplanade for lunch, vin chaud in the old part of Rennes, and at 6.30pm, we caught a light show on the City Hall.
Most of all, a sumptuous meal including scallops with endives, chestnut meringued ice-cream and exquisite vines, all organised to perfection !!! No less.
At 11:56 pm exactly, we turned on the TV to tune in to the world, but instead, we got a documentary about the Crazy Horse, so as fate has it, I FINALLY learnt how to dance the French Cancan properly under Sandrine's guidance, who is a keen classical dancer! Oscar danced Bob Sinclair (Rock this Party) and Josie Inferno (Paris to Berlin), some JM Jarre for Sandrine.
Our train was at 8.00 am this morning to Paris - that was a bit tough :) The pace is fairly fast at the moment.
Tomorrow, we will take the TGV at 7:00 am for Mégève - The Alps to spend 4 days in a Chalet-Hotel.
Backtracking
After we spent Christmas with Paul's parents, we all became sick with the flue for two days. I spent one day in the bed (the 26th) as I was keen on recovering as soon as possible. This was no joke, no option for me, I had to do everything possible to get back on my feet quickly. I got worried for Oscar especially because it was not clear a doctor could be reached easily there, neither a hospital for the matter. When I inquired about an opened chemist on the 28th, I was horrified to read on the door that no chemist would be available in the town of Ivybridge between the 26th and the 2nd - a feel of having landed in the NEVER NEVER land.
On the 28th, we were to drive to London to have a celebration for my mother in law's 70th Birthday with some of her relatives. We were all reasonably recovered by then, except for Paul's dad, who felt he was too sick to come with us to London. So that left me and Paul for driving. The driving conditions were horrendous: fog, snow and rain. In the first 15 mn of me driving the damn car, as I reversed in the ghost chemist shop car park, I touched a pole that was standing in the middle of the empty car park, and the right hand side front door handle area got damaged. This is the most painful financial event so far as the insurance excess had been worked out very optimistically (let's not get depressed).
We had a 20mn stop in Stone Henge. We went to see for ourselves the intriguing rocks laid out there approx. at the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt. It was suitably surrounded by sheep, you just 'got into this eery atmosphere' and let your imagination run wild.
We reached London after 8 hours of driving - for only 200 miles! The main road was sometimes only a single lane, and it was painfully slow.
In London, Paul's mum wanted to make a detour in Croydon to show us where she grew up. I drove to Croydon, but we did not stop. Not sure why we did not meet anyone there Despite receiving yearly Christmas cards, the children and I had not met any one from her family except from her cousin's who was at the restaurant, no word was spoken about it.
This was a doomed day, because I did not manage to see my friend Hafida, who had herself been sick that day and told me about the change of plan as we arrived in London, although we had been happily texting in anticipation to be meeting that evening a few hours earlier. The family meal was the following day.
For the bright side, we stayed at a very convenient place, The Premier Hotel, in Waterloo station area, that Paul's mum booked for us. It was convenient for the price (110 pounds approx for 4 people in the City Centre), checked in with 'no talk' - you just check in to a computer - spare toothpaste comes in a vendor machine if you need it, but the beds are very clean and comfortable. It was convenient for the location: right near the London Eye and Big Ben.
I stayed in the bedroom with Oscar who had a tummy upset while Paul, Josie and his mum went for a pizza. I went down to the hotel restaurant, and they were kind enough to let me take a food tray upstairs in the room. Later that evening, Paul's mum volunteered to babysit the kids, so Paul and I wandered London Streets and went to the Sherlock Holmes Pub to sample English beers. It was 7C quite mild relatively, so we could relax a bit under the street festive illuminations.
We had a full English breakfast at the hotel (free for the kids). The children loved that! Then, we walked around the hotel, saw Big Ben, the Parliament House, 10 Downing Street, the London Bridge, and I could recognize all the familiar landmarks of western civilization : roman columns, fascination with ancient Greece and ancient Egypt civilizations, war memorial of the same kinds, the democracy landmarks, even the female statues representing the five continents in Downing Street resembled those you can find in front of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Very much like Paris in many ways seen from Australia.
For lunch, we took a ferry to Greenwich to meet a cousin of my mother in law accompanied by her husband and two children, with whom we would share a meal for my mother in law's 70th birthday. It was in a pub with lots of character.
We parted with my mother in law who was going to go back home to her husband by train the following day after visiting other relatives by herself, and we took the train to St Albans to visit some very dear friends of ours and their 3 children. Their enthusiasm and cheerfulness was contagious, and I felt completely refuelled after spending one night at their place. The kids had a ball as well, they played Wii, ate a mega couscous, and we went playing football in a nearby field after breakfast the following day before embarking the Eurostar later that day at St Pancreas Station on the 30th. It was sad to think that such good friends were living so far away, but they promised they would come and see us again in Australia soon - in three years :( - still !
I loved London, it was clear in my mind that I could live here as well.
