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Is This Where It Ends?

9/12/2016

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It’s been almost 4 months since the last blog post, the longest time ever that we have not written about our travel experiences, and I don’t really know why.

Maybe because when we left Spain and landed in France it took just a few days for us to feel like we were at home, and nobody writes about being at home! The mind shift was instant for us all and really weird, but the house we swapped into gave us an instant feel of home, our neighbours (and owners of the house) became immediate friends and the surrounding countryside gave us a feel of familiarity and ease. ​

Our neighbour Corine then offered to get the kids into the local school for us, helped us meet the headmistress and the Mairie, and then talked us through the paper work and hey presto, all was done. The children attended French school for 1 month and loved every minute of it, immediately integrating with their peers and teachers. Then they were introduced and invited to join the local riding club, we attended the village lotto and met the locals in the process and became regulars at the Friday night village Moules Frites nights! After our month’s stay we were offered the opportunity to rent the house long term from the end of August and we jumped at the chance.
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                      La Maison Bleue is now our home for the next 9 months!
In our 4 months here in France we home swapped in 4 different properties (one a chateau) and house sat one property for 2 months, taking care of the gardening duties and other odd jobs for the owner in return for accommodation.
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                             Crayfishing outside the Chateau we stayed in!
We have seen countless chateaux, castles, towns, villages, hamlets and visited friends in Bordeaux and Corberre. We have seen Le Tour De France, visited a raspberry festival, attended horse racing, Dan’s parents have come to stay with us and we have visited beaches, lakes and rivers and even taken a day trip to Spain to the Dali museum. We have been wine tasting, played Petanque, archery and table tennis, climbed through trees on ropes and zip lines and watched the Olympics and European championships.
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        Ice Creams and Coffee with Nanny and grandad in Couillere South East France.
Dan turned 40, Kaitlyn turned 11, Sophia turned 9 and everyone has been working on their French, talking to our neighbours for 10 minutes a day seems easily the quickest way to learn!

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South of France.

8/28/2015

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This post picks up from where we left New York, we spent a quick 1.5 days in England before heading off for the South of France for James and Mezh’s wedding. Our feet barely touched the floor in England and we were soon off to Gatwick at 5am to catch our flight to Toulouse. Luckily Clair's Mum woke us up that morning as our alarm didn't go off as it was set for 4.30pm, not am and since we still had jet lag from the US, we would have slept all morning, if we'd have had the chance! It's amazing how quickly you can get out the door when you need to! We arrived at Gatwick with plenty of time to spare, but typically we ended up sitting on the tarmac for 2 extra hours with an Easyjet delay.

On arrival in France we hired our car and set off to find the wedding location which was a 1.5 hour drive away, and what a spectacular place it was. Nestled on a hill in the countryside surrounded by sunflower fields was Castelnau des Fieumarcon. A 13th Century fortified town which steeps in history, charm and character, the perfect setting to spend 3 days celebrating an unbelievable wedding. Many drinks were shared, much food was consumed and lots of dancing long into the night was the order of the weekend and enjoyed by over 60 guests; made up of close family and friends. Thank you so much to James and Mezh, what an extraordinary show of generosity you showed us all!

After the amazing but exhausting wedding weekend we needed a break!

Our next stop was the tiny town of Roquebrun which was situated a 4 hour drive east. We fell in love with this sleepy riverside village immediately and enjoyed our time here immensely. Visiting the nearby local towns was easy and a pleasure to walk around and explore, but the best day trip within the local area was a wine tasting tour.

We hiked through the vineyards of St Chinian Winery guided by 2 sisters of the family who own and run the estate. They explained the ages of the different vines (some were 100 years old) the different grape varietals they had planted and why and how the soil makes a huge difference to what they plant. They also showed us the pressing and fermentation rooms, which were basically century old stone buildings right in the middle of the vineyards, explained how they harvested and processed the grapes and of course let us taste straight from the barrels.

They then walked us back to the village, laid on some nibbles and supplied us with even more wine, all for FREE! Naturally we had to buy a bottle or 3, as the wine was excellent, and at 8 Euro’s per bottle who could really say no!? Oh forgot to mention, they also had an olive grove and pressed their own oil, which was also delicious!

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The tiny town of Ceps where the winery is based.
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           Lauren ready for harvest.
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     Our guides explaining their work.
      Taking the path less travelled.

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England and Paris.

7/11/2014

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After our Siem reap temple adventure we were back to Samui for a short 2 weeks before coming back to the UK via Singapore.

Being back in Essex after so long was great and we were treated to some unbelievable weather for the first couple of days. In the first weekend we managed to catch up with so many of our old friends and family, the jet lag didn't even get a chance to kick in. We also managed to squeeze in a trip to Hadleigh castle (built in the 1200's) and the Salvation army rare breeds farm where the kids got to feed the animals and play in the playground. 

Sunday was party day at the Bakewell's house, pretty much everybody was there, except for Jackie, Jeff and Lea who were out of the country, but we will catch up with them separately on our travels, there's no escape! It was a great day to catch up with so many people at once and find out what everybody is up to these days, we look forward to there soon being one more added to the group!
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Straight into Monday and our first trip into London, which was a whirlwind of sights, the least expected of all being the sight of the Kennaway family (friends from Singapore) waiting across the platform as our train pulled out of Sloane Square, a rare sight in deed! ;)

The day was jam packed, we saw the Tower of London, HMS Belfast, the Shard, Tower Bridge, visited the Natural history museum, had ice cream in Hyde park just outside of the Royal Albert Hall, walked by Kensington palace and played in the Princess of Wales memorial playground. Suffice to say, we were knackered after all of that!

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Quick history interlude - The Albert memorial was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband Prince Albert who died of typhoid in 1861. The memorial is 54 metres high and took over 10 years to complete!

The next day we were off to Suffolk to catch up with the Prince Family and enjoy Jared's (Dan's brother) birthday celebrations. This was the first time in a few years that the whole family had been all together. Plenty of great food (nod to a mega paella) and drink was consumed, loads of fun was had by all and even an early Sunday morning surprise was delivered for the kids, courtesy of the birthday boy himself! The cousins had a blast, it was so nice for them to be all together and loved the bouncy castle, in just 2 months there will be another one for them to get to know!  

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The boys led the charge for the birthday bundle!
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We were also treated to a special day out at Duxford Imperial War Museum, this place is absolutely huge and jam packed with awe inspiring airplanes. It's history of flight and the second world war is amazing and very interactive for the kids to enjoy and learn about at the same time. Dan's inner geek came out and he felt humbly honoured and privileged to see a Concorde, Lancaster, Flying Fortess, Vulcan, Spitfire, messersmicht, U2 (not the band), Blackbird (AMAZING), Harrier Jump Jet, B52 (unbelievably massive) and many many more.

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Geek fix - The Blackbird SR71 Spy plane that replaced the U2, only 32 ever built, 12 lost in accidents none lost in operations, still holds the world height (85k feet) and speed record....... since 1976!!!! 

Immense.

After Suffolk came the trip that the kids were all eagerly awaiting, Disney! So it was time to load up the beast and head across the chunnel, 6 hours and 40 minutes door to door in our 17 year old landcruiser! 
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Does not hold any speed records.
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