Absence makes the heart...

(flying across the White cliffs)


We're back. Not that you'll have noticed I was away, since my blog silences go on for longer than 2 weeks often, but we went to France. To the house we used on honeymoon.
I'd nearly give anything to be back there now.

We looked for the care bears on the way there and back, elusive little buggers. I say we, I mean me.

honeymoon part 2: Paris

When we made it off the train in to Paris I was far more relaxed. there were no more possible delays, our only remaining transport was in the hands of eurostar and dear old British rail. We found our way out to the worlds longest taxi queue, which also wins the award for worlds fastest moving taxi queue. We went on a hairpin backstreet one way street ride to our flat in the 3ieme which was a tiny tiny studio, with amazing use of space. seriously, go look.

We were there for 5 days, and we did a lot of walking, even after we bought 5 day passes to the metro. They are well worth the money, get one if you go. is the first time I've done much travelling on public transport on holiday, I've not felt particularly safe on them before, but this was fine.

We passed Notre Dame several times on our wanders, impressive inside and out but so swamped by tourists that we never spent long there. The first of my dreams to visit viewpoints and take photos from high up, crushed cruelly by large queues of chinese tourists. dreams aside, it was a beautiful building inside. amazing

We happened to wander to the arc de triomphe just as they were raising this massive French flag.

On morning we went up to Montmartre, made it up to the hill to Notre Dame, to see the early morning views over the city. Just in time, also, for a frenchman to get his head in my photo.

We'd read about the insitut du monde arabe being one of the great free viewpoints of the city, and we managed to find it one day. its an amazing building, the whole side below is glass fronted, and split into panels. Within each panel are hundreds of contracting mechanisms which control the amount of sunlight going into the building. just as stunning from inside when you can see the mechanisms.

Theres a cafe at the top too, when you reach the free view!

I built a journey around going to this metro station, since I had seen it on Little Brown Pen. It was redesigned in a steampunk style based around Jules Vernes work. Absolutely amazing, its clad in copper, the seats are wood, and every so often there are portholes in the wall with museum artefacts in from the arts et metiers museum above it.

We went on one of the boat tours up the Seine. you can hop on and off all day, but we just did one long course of the river, starting just before Notre Dame and going to the Eiffel Tower. James enjoyed it for seeing the underside of the bridges, odd man, and I enjoyed all the views.

These last two are from the tuileries gardens, and one of the old shopping arcades that have been restored. 



I loved Paris, and I'm glad I've been, but I didn't find it as amazing as it always sounds. If I went back, I think I'd go with friends, and do different things. I'd like to see the massive Monets in the orangerie, and wander and drink coffee and not feel the compulsion to have to see everything. We went to the eiffel tower three times thinking we might go up, and every time the queues were horrendous. so I have lots of pictures from the bottom, but none from any level above that. We went at night once though, as very hour the whole tower lights up like a sparkler for 3 minutes. that was worth seeing.

(what a misery I sound! I did love it, it just wasnt earth shatteringly, mind blowingly awesome. And I'd rather be honest)

The honeymoon, south of France

We left for London, and the start of our honeymoon, on the Monday. We stayed overnight in London, right next to Kings Cross, as our eurostar left early the next morning. We had decided to do everything by train, which would have been lovely had the French not chosen the start of our honeymoon to strike over retirement ages. The eurostar people were very helpful both the night before and on the train, keeping us as up to speed with everyones connections as they could, unfortunately things were happening in France faster than they knew. To cut a long story short, we ended up waiting in Lille (however it gave us a chance to do a bit of food shopping, ever taken 2 suitcases round a French hypermarket?) then getting further south to a town I have no desire to remember the name of, being stuck in the train station for several hours as the train time kept getting delayed, until finally in the night a double-decker tgv appeared out of the night, to get us to Montpellier. The car hire company had been great, we found their place while in Lille and got them to transfer our booking to the airport depot since the train station office would be shut by the time we got there. So we got a taxi to the airport, where we found possibly the most helpful car hire man in the world.

Finally we were under our own steam and not bound up in the Frenches arguments!

So instead of the 5pm we had anticipated, James found himself driving us out into the countryside of France for over an hour at 9pm. I am eternally grateful that he likes driving, and has driven abroad before. (that didn't really cut it much shorter, did it)

Our home for the next week was a holiday home of a friends in a tiny hamlet on the edge of the Languedoc. The setting, once we had recovered and it was light enough to appreciate it was lovely. (so lovely, that we are going back this summer) The hamlet was perched up the side of one of the big valleys which cut through the region, so from our little patio we had lovely views. Behind the house the hills rose up, to the top of the escarpment, and even though it was October it was still lovely blue skies, bright sunshine. The nearest town, St Affrique was 5 minutes drive, and had everything we needed to make lovely simple meals.  

We did a lot of relaxing in the first week, something James especially isn't known for!
We went out on a day trip to Albi, with a colossal cathedral, built from brick, and frescoed inside with geometric patterns, it was a soaring building.

 

 

We went for a drive along the gorges one afternoon, seeing towns perched up on rocks, and landed in a small town as local men came in from the country with boars in the back of their pickup trucks, which were then taken into what must have been a butchers. We were lucky to have got one of the Citroën cars with a panoramic windscreen, so we had brilliant views in all these gorges.

We went to a very odd town (la Couvertoirade), restored from the time of the conquest, to be as it was -a fortified walled town - but people live in it and craftsmen have little shops in it. It didn't help that a) it had not really been described as that, and b) the fog was like pea soup that day, so it was rather like being in an Indiana Jones film. We arrived into the car park and could hear disembodied voices in the mist. Very odd.

 

James wanted to see the Millau viaduct, built by Norman Foster, the tallest bridge in the world. It was pretty impressive, we managed to find a road that went under it one day, which actually showed it off better than when we went across it later in the week. The photo on the left is James in front of the bridge just before we went over it. the part of the road with the bridge on is toll, once you ar on it you can pull into a specially built service station with a viewing platform which is where we were at in that photo.

 

 We went for a walk up to the top or the escarpment one afternoon, which was wonderful, lots of wildlife, fantastic views and lots of sun. On the left is a little village from another drive through a gorge, with trogloditic houses, and the right is from the top of the escarpment.

  

Then, after a week, it was back onto the train, bound for Paris. We got to travel first class, actually got our seats, although the train was packed and it was only an hour delayed! Once I was in Paris I relaxed a lot as our only transport left to take (eurostar home and good ol' British rail) were not involved in the strikes.

An evening stroll

This evening James and I went for a 'stroll' along the river.

I say stroll, it was more of a gentle scramble along the riverside playground of james' youth.

(that's James, in case you were wondering)

You can join a path along the river right behind our house, we didn't know how far we might be able to still get along it now. Turns out, the answers all the way still!

We got all the way to this old disused bridge, although it can't be crossed now sadly, hard to believe that behind those trees there's estate after estate, and the city hospital!

There was some scrambling under the rail bridge, and jumping over boggy bits, but mostly it was really pretty!

The bluebells are out in force here, they're migrating into my garden too!

We seemed to be following the family of ducklings most of the way along the river.

We also found an approaching army of pylons, but hopefully they can't cross the river?

a room with a view.

 

The garden is really coming into bloom now, so I thought I'd share one of my favourite views from the house with you. The ancient apple tree, shading debris from the shed saga (more on that to come, oh the joys), the chestnut we hung my wedding dress from to photograph it, and a lovely lilac. There's several of those around the garden, which I love. The lovely sunshine is making it harder to see here, but if I waited I'd never get round to posting. I'm too impatient.

Just a little sneak peek of whats to come once I finish the last of my wedding posts.

credit where credits due, pt 2

In praise of friends.
Little did I think when I started this blog 18 months ago, that I would make what i hope are lasting friendships from it.
This little space was created after spending several weekends completely immersed in the world of wedding blogs, seeing the relationships that formed, the supportive comments, and the brilliant ideas in weddings which were oh SO different to the ones in magazines.
Of course, I wanted in on all that fun. I hoped that people would pop by and comment, like what I was doing. I wanted it as an outlet for the ideas I was having, rather than constantly bombarding my mum and lovely bridesmaid with emails.
And you came, and you commented, and you were lovely. Occasionally you would email, and slowly relationships started to grow.
One day I met one of you, bizarrely we went ring shopping together. If it weren't for this meeting, I wouldn't have the wedding ring I wear today.
Then a while later, another lady emailed, asking about a group meet. So 5 of us met, in Edinburgh (I love that because of these ladies I get posh days out to Edinburgh :) drank coffee, smelt tea, ate cake, and laughed.
We've met again, with the addition of another, and I count all of them amongst my friends. Oddly, for people I haven't known that long, I feel like they can read me like a book. Maybe I wear my heart on my sleeve, maybe I am an open book, or maybe we were meant to meet, who knows?
You may notice us, babbling on twitter (sorry! We're that loud group in the corner).
But it's not only these ladies who've commented, who have read my ramblings. I wanted to say thank you to you all.
The ladies who write about their life in London, sometimes with forays abroad.
The ladies who married before me, marching on into married life.
The ladies who moved country to live with their husbands, to Italy, to America.
Ladies with beautiful children, who take beautiful photos.
Ladies who got married after me, in the snow.
A Lady who got married the same day as me
A lady who makes wonderful driftwood sculptures.
A lady who takes gorgeous photos, and had the most colourful wedding ever!
(every link is a different blogger, do click through to them all)
And lastly, (but definitely not least) to the real life friends. Not many of them know about this space, but I'll thank those that do anyway.
To Andi, and Kathryn, for funny twitter conversations, and just for being good friends. (and for a recent pretty awesome birthday present which I'll show you soon)
My bridesmaids - my 'sister', oldest friend, and best friend. Thank you all for being beside me when I got married :)
Only one of you reads this, and I hope you don't mind me 'outing' you, but thank you for being with me through nearly all of the wedding planning, for giving me a kick up the proverbial when I needed it, for organising a brilliant hen, and for being beside me as I got married. I should probably also thank your husband (!) for not only being our wedding entertainment, but also the entertainment (purely musical I assure you) at my hen.

Thanks to all of you, and I hope you'll stick along for the ride with me.

credit where credits due, pt 1.

venue - Crosby Lodge
photographer - Anna Hardy
Bridal dress shop - Mia Bridal
Dress designer - Suzanne Neville
Stationery pieces - Daintree paper/Paperchase/Papermash/fiskars
Transport - Silver lady wedding cars
Bridesmaids outfits - Laura Ashley/Monsoon
Rings - Michael King/Wedding rings direct

etsy shops, used for jewellery for bridesmaids, and supplies for my headband: pianobenchdesigns/marynotmartha/whiteowl