Great website!

Jamie and Peter have created a website for their handy applications for teachers..

www.handyapps.co.nz

Home

We made it back in one piece, all luggage intact and in the right place at the right time, and we didn't even have much jet-lag!

Thursday was our last day in London, and we had half the day free before we needed to head for Heathrow, so we went to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard. We got there a bit late, and had a bit of trouble seeing anything very clearly, which was a shame.

The final London excitement was a trip to Harrod's! We only had time for a brief shop, but could easily have spent a couple of hours there if we'd had the time.

We allowed plenty of time to get to the airport by Tube, and we needed every minute of it. There was no hanging around at any point on the way back home, all flights were bang on time, no hiccoughs at all, nobody got sick, all very boring really! We did, however, get to watch lots of movies and TV shows on the wonderful Singapore Air personal entertainment consoles.

We arrived in a hot and humid Auckland at midday on Saturday, and of course we had no summer clothing to speak of (except for Natasha who got some in the sales in France). We forced ourselves to stay awake by having afternoon tea with Alastair (Peter's cousin), Aakanksha, Anoushka and Marcus, and then dinner with Carolyn (Peter's cousin), Matt, Oscar and Meg.

The next morning, we flew back to Wellington, where Pat and Geoff welcomed us home with a lovely lunch already prepared on our dining room table. Again, we all stayed up until bed-time, and from then on we had no problems with jet-lag. Yay!

We've had a truly wonderful holiday, with its share of ups and downs of course, but no major problems. We got to experience real long-term snow, met lots of family (some for the first time), spoke and heard a variety of languages and discovered that toilet light switches are always outside the door!

Nearly the end

Quite a long drive on Sunday, from Hereford to London, but we couldn't miss Stonehenge, so that added about an hour to the journey.Of course we couldn't go right up to the stones, but with the help of an audioguide it was well worth it.

After dropping off the rental car and eating at a local Indian restaurant we got on the tube and went to the Thames where we had a look at Big Ben and the London Eye.

The British Museum was first on the agenda on Tuesday, We spent at least three hours there, and could have spent more. The Rosetta Stone is on display there, as well as the Elgin Marbles and some of the Staffordshire Hoard. Janet's arthritis finally got the better of her, and she spent some of the visit in one of the wheelchairs that the museum has available. Peter handled a Roman coin, Natasha chilled in the Bhuddism display and Jamie saw some awesome clocks.

Next stop was London Bridge, where we stood in the middle and looked down the gap into the river.

Then a ride on the Docklands Light Rail (just for fun), back to the hotel, then off to the Dominion Theatre, to experience the phenomenon that is We Will Rock You. We couldn't not go to a London Musical, and since we all like Queen, what could be better? It was great!

On Tuesday morning Tash had a lie-in while the others went to the newly-opened Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. It was very busy, but a fantastic thing to do. Letters that he wrote, where he described his work and included a sketch, were displayed alongside the work itself. When we came out, we just had to have a look through Fortnum & Mason across the road!

Tuesday afternoon was spent at London's marvellous Science Musuem, and although this was the fourth visit to this sort of thing on our travels, in many ways it was also the best (and completely free too!)

That night we went to Islington, where we had dinner with Isabelle (French) and Andrew (NZer). We got to know them when they lived in Wellington in 2008, where Isabelle was a French Language Assistant at Wellington Girls' College. The meal was at a very nice, but surprisingly affordable French restaurant. Afterwards we rode our first London Red Double-Decker back home.

Wednesday was spent at the Tate Modern, where we had our very own personal tour of the Surrealism section (again, all free), crossing the Millennium Bridge, doing the laundry (you really wanted to know that, didn't you?), riding the London Eye and paying homage to the lions and Sir Keith Park in Trafalgar Square.

Then off to another dinner with friends, this time in Ealing, with Maream (Iraqui) and Jim (British) at a Nepalese restaurant.

Stay tuned for the last thrilling installment...

Through England

The last four days have been a busy social whirl, as we have been tracking down and meeting dozens of relatives, both alive and dead!

On Wednesday morning, we started by tracking down the the Battisby  family tombstone in the Kirkcudbright cemetery . That's Janet's father's mother's mother's parents and some of their children. The we hit the road for England, where we pointed out and explained the significance of Lockerbie amd Gretna Green to the children.  Unfortunately, Coco decided to have the day off and refused to turn on, so that made the journey quite interesting!

We wanted to get to Lowther Castle to visit the Brocklebank tombstone (that's Peter's mother's father's father's father's parents!) All we knew, without any sort of map at all, was that we should leave the motorway south of Penrith, then head back north a bit to the town of Hackthorpe. Well, there were no useful signs, but plenty of helpful locals! We eventually found the castle and its graveyard, and then drove round Hackthorpe looking for an old house with "Brocklebank" written on the gate. When that didn't work, we found an "old-timer" who said, "oh, yes, that's the Brocklebank house over there, the one with the red window frames. I remember Mrs Brocklebank!" That was pretty cool, considering she died in 1946!

Over the next two evenings, we stayed with offspring of Janet's half-cousin, Jean McCallister.  Jean's grandfather, Robert McCallister, left his family in Blackburn to seek his fortune in New Zealand. He never returned, and he soon stopped communicating with them, especially after marrying Janet's grandmother!

So we met lots of descendants from Robert's first marriage, including some teenage boys (much to Jamie and Natasha's joy!), and saw the sights of Lytham, St. Annes, Blackpool, Macclesfield and Congleton. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, and they went out of their way to make us feel right at home, even if we had a bit of trouble with each other's accents at times!

Friday, we travelled in the rain down the M6 and M5 through the industrial north-west. When we got to Herefordshire, though, the weather started to improve. By this time, Coco had undergone a some minor surgery, and was happy to take us wherever we wanted to go. This was just as well really, because we were entering a part of the country consisting of 3-metre wide lanes with 3-metre high hedges on both sides! This is where Janet's mother's
cousin's daughter Ruth lives with her husband Gordon on a farm where they grow organic potatoes. But not only that, they also run gorgeous self-catered farm accommodation! (www.holtfarmholidays.com).

So we have spent the last day-and-a-half relaxing in lovely rural comfort, meeting the local animals and preparing for what will no doubt be a busy time in London on the last leg of our European odyssey.

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Kirkcudbright

In the weekend, David and Ruth and the children were free to spend time with us. On Saturday, we headed to Edinburgh Castle where the children had a lot of fun climbing rocky outcrops, clambering over cannons and viewing the Stone of Destiny and the Scottish crown jewels.
 

Later in the day, we walked through Princes Street Gardens and into town where we had afternoon tea at John Lewis'.

On Sunday we went to Glasgow, via Linlithgow Castle where the children once again had a ball. Janet and Ruth made a little excursion to visit Ruth's parents. It was lovely to meet them after all these years.

 

We then headed to the Glasgow Science Museum which was lots of fun. On the way home we had dinner in a gorgeous pub, the Ratho Bridge Inn.

Monday was a quiet day with lunch at our local Bruntsfield cafe, browsing (and, alas, buying) in several bookshops and some other Edinburgh shops. In the evening, we laughed ourselves silly watching episodes of the British comedy series, Outnumbered.

On Tuesday, after a trip to HMV to buy the DVD of Outnumbered and a CD of The Red Hot Chili Pipers (bagpipes playing "We will rock you" - has to be heard to be believed!), we headed for Kirkcudbright. In a supreme feat of memory and spectacular navigation skills, Peter found the house, near Balmaclellan (but basically in the middle of nowhere), where he lived for a couple of months when he was 9. We saw the dry stone walls that his father was employed to maintain, and are pleased to report that they are still holding up well, 37 years later.

We arrived in Kirkcudbright at 4pm, and explored the streets where Janet and Peter's ancestors lived in the mid 19th century. For those of you who don't know, we have discovered that Janet's great grandmother was servant to Peter's great-great grandmother in Kirkcudbright in 1861. The houses below are in Millburn Street where Janet's great-great grandparents and their children lived in 1841. Unfortunately, the censuses from that time did not show house numbers, so we don't know exactly which houses were theirs. Dinner was in yet another pub – bread and butter pudding to die for!

Tomorrow we're off to England, to visit descendants of Janet's bigamous grandfather!

Edinburgh

Thursday was a rather dreary day, all in all:

First of all, when we looked out the window of our London hotel, everyone had their brollies up.

We had to catch the train to Edinburgh at midday, but when we got to Kings Cross and discovered that it was going to cost us about $NZ70 to leave our bags there for a couple of hours, we decided to sit in the waiting room and not bother trying to do anything interesting!

The train itself was fine, with plenty of room for bags, free wireless and a drink & snack trolley coming past every now and then, but about an hour into the journey, we stopped for 45 minutes in the middle of nowhere, so that was very tedious.

Eventually, though, we got to Edinbugh, where Janet's brother David picked us up and took us to his lovely home complete with lovely family. The young children, Eilidh, Hamish and Ishbel, took a while to warm up to us, but within 24 hours the ice was well and truly broken.

When we awoke on Friday morning, we had the house to ourselves, so we had a very lazy morning, and made our way to the local shops to get a bus into town at around lunchtime. We were waylaid by an excellent cafe where three out of four of us had nachos for lunch (I guess we must have really missed Mexican food over the past month).

Despite a very unhelpful bus-driver, we managed to get into town where we came across the National Museum of Scotland, and pretty much the first thing we saw was Jackie Stewart's racing car (or one of them, I guess).

By luck, a free guided tour was about to start, so we joined it and were treated to a wonderful look at women's position in Scottish society over the centuries, as illustrated by various exhibits in the museum. One of our stops was at this Gown of Repentance, which adulturous and promiscuous women were required by the chuch to wear, until they saw the error of their ways!

A quick look around the grounds of Greyfriars, a very helpful bus-driver, and we were back with David, Ruth and the kids.

Perhaps Edinburgh Castle tomorrow...

In London, briefly

Yes, we've left the continent, and are now in the UK. On the way to the Chunnel, someone commented that France all looks the same (because of the snow everywhere). Well, when we got to England, it looked the same as France, only with extra snow!

Of course, the trains were all running behind schedule, and we missed our connection with the Eurostar, but we were relatively easily booked onto the next one, an hour later. Of course, that one was running even further behind time, so we ended up getting to London about two hours later than planned.

Or hotel is about a 10 minute walk from St Pancras Station, where the Eurostar stops. On the way, we passed a rather inviting-looking English pub,  so after settling in we returned there and enjoyed a lovely English pub meal!

We've looked at some of the things we can do when we come back to London on the 24th and booked a "flight" on the London Eye, but tomorrow we head to Edinbrrrrrrrr!

Lovely Lyon

From Paris, we travelled to the south-east of France by TGV. It soon became clear to us that being closer to the equator doesn't necessarily mean warmer and less snow. By the time we arrived in Lyon we could see snow piled up at the side of roads and footpaths, much more so than in Paris. Fortunately, it hasn't felt particularly cold here, but we have had to be very careful not to slip on the ice. You can see all the icicles on the fountain below:

On our first afternoon in Lyon we spent an hour travelling around the city on their truly excellent public transport system. Some of the metro lines are completely automated, and there are space-age trolley-buses and trams:

We wandered through the old part of Lyon after that, visiting some of the wonderful shops and looking at the various restaurants, thinking about which one we would eat dinner at later in the evening.

Our hotel is a pleasant surprise: we knew it was only 2-star, so our expectations were low, but it has turned out to be very nice indeed, and perfectly located on a big square in the middle of the city. There is a large ferris-wheel in this square, and after a lovely dinner with an "interesting" young waiter, Peter, Natasha and Jamie went for a spin:



This morning Jamie was feeling very sick, so he and Janet stayed in the hotel while Natasha and Peter went up to the top of the hill in Old Lyon to visit the basilica and the Gallo-Roman museum:

It's on the site of Roman ruins and is very nicely set-out. There was a special exhibition about Roman funeral rites, and we each had an audioguide which really made it come alive (as it were).

After lunch, Jamie was feeling somewhat better, so we set out for the Art Museum where we expected to find an exhibition including Picasso and Matisse. We found the museum, but it was closed (the French, eh!). We drowned our sorrows by going to a nearby Haagen-Dazs for decadent waffles and crepes (it's behind the fountain above). We then headed for the nearest metro stop to go to the cathedral in time to catch the incredible 14th century astronomical clock strike four! We very nearly missed it, but it was worth the rush:

Janet knows Lyon well, as she spent a year here in 1987-8. So after the clock experience, we hopped back on the metro and got off at her old stop. She reminisced about old times as we looked for and found  the building that she lived in:

Dinner was a bit of a dilemma for us: do we try another of Lyon's renowned restaurants and risk it not being up to scratch, or do we go back to the same place as yesterday, where we know we'll get good food at a reasonable price, but be less adventurous and spend another evening with the same slightly invasive waiter? In the end, we went with what we knew, but only after embarrassing Jamie hugely by walking out of one restaurant after we had been seated, because it smelled strongly of cigarette smoke!

We have had a very nice time in Lyon, and in France in general. Tomorrow, all going well with the TGV and Eurostar, we will go to London. Au revoir!

Paris continued...

We were lucky to find two excellent sources of take-home food very near to our apartment: an indoor market-come-foodcourt and a wonderful boulangerie. So every evening we stopped off at one or the other and then had an enjoyable meal in the comfort of our own diningroom.

During Friday's meal we realised that we were not going to be in Paris long enough to see even half of the things we wanted to; drastic action was required. Consequently, Peter, Jamie and Natasha spent Friday and Saturday nights visiting famous Parisian landmarks:

l'Arc de Triomphe;

 

 la Grande Arche;

 

Sacré Coeur;

and l'Opéra Bastille.

On Saturday we did the Louvre...

and Notre Dame.

We spent most of Sunday at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (which is like Science Alive in Christchurch, but ten times bigger) and then squeezed in  Beaubourg on the way home.

No night-time excursions that night, except to Boulevard St-Germain for crêpes and around the corner to the laundrymat, then a reasonably early night in preparation for the TGV to Lyons first thing Monday morning.

We've had a pretty good time in Paris. The metros, the shops, the food, the snow, the  museums, the monuments, the  men who try to chat up Natasha, the beggars, the buskers, the uninformative information desk attendants... Thay've all added up to a memorable experience for each of us.

Caen to Paris

Our B&B in Caen was very nice. When we went down to breakfast the owner had classical music playing and candles burning! It was still snowing, so we had to brave the slippery roads again, and sure enough, the first turn we made saw us sliding uncontrollably! We headed for the shopping area, tried out a few shoe shops and eventually found a tiny shop in a back street where Natasha got some boots and some slip-ons (des ballérines). We also went into a clothes shop where she got a skirt and some trousers. After lunch we trudged back through the snow to the car, found the railway station, dropped off the rental car and got on the train to Paris.

After our last experience of arriving in Paris with our bags, we decided to get a taxi this time. Our self-contained apartment is in a narrow street near Boulevard St-Germain, on the 5th floor. Fortunately it has a lift. It is only big enough for one person and a bag, or two people who know each other very well, and has a wonderful sign on the door:

Today dawned still and fine, so we decided to do the Eiffel Tower experience. Once again, the Paris Metro system let us down, and by the time we got near, it was lunch-time. After spaghetti and pizza we dodged the hawkers and joined the hour-long queue. Janet chose not to go up and nearly froze to death at ground level, whereas the rest of us nearly froze to death 200m up!

In a desperate effort to ward off hypothermia we then took an hour-long cruise up the Seine. It was a good thing to do, as there was quite a good commentary, and there were not many people on the boat.

Unfortunately, the five minute walk to the Metro station afterwards froze us to the core again!

So here we are, all four of us at CYBERCUBE, as we are staying somewhere with no internet access. All our other commercial accommodation so far has had free wi-fi.

We have just noted with interest that Wellington is expecting 22 degrees today.

Caen - in one piece!

It was a beautiful but hair-raising trip from St Malo to Mt St Michel to Caen. We got most of the way to Mt St Michel without any problems, but the causeway out to the mount was pretty slippery, and we did a 180 with a bus behind us. The bus driver thought it was very funny!

The place was very touristy, and if we'd come at any other time of the year it would have been very crowded.

The drive to Caen was a mix of easy and scary driving. At times the motorway was virtually deserted and we were crawling along on a slippery road. I guess if we had stopped, the snow plough would have come along eventually. When we got to our B&B the place was deserted. Someone turned up 15 minutes later. She had been contacted by the owner, who was trapped by snow in the country!

On Tuesday we had a bit on an explore of the area around St Malo. We went to a town that appears to exsist purely for the purposes of farming shellfish.

St Malo itself is a beautiful town, as are all the towns in Brittany, really. Perhaps we should buy a house in Brittany and come back every year!

The big sales started in France yesterday, so we're off shopping in Caen, and then we'll catch a train to Paris...

SNOW

Will we get to Caen today? We'll let you know!

 

Yes, it's still dark, but we couldn't wait!!!