Versaillesfountains.AVI

This was the little video I shot of the musical fountains at Versailles. At 3:30pm all the fountains in the vast park started with a classical music accompaniment, heard all over the park.

Shifted house

Well, Peter and I are now in our new home - to be exact Peter is there and i am back in Sydney but after sleeping there four nights I am convinced it will work out well for us. It is a beautiful place. Grateful for Catherine who gave up a week of her precious holidays to come over and help Peter pack ( she was really ill so it was no holiday for her) - Samantha came with her and everyone who met her loved our little princess.

The shift went really well although I was pooped by the time I had furiously unpacked and sorted out all I could before I had to go back to Sydney.

Pictures of new house follow -

Two days in Paris

My weekend in PAris was very full - I feel like a major name-dropper but I was so very grateful to have the chance of being there and grateful to Anne for letting me share her apartment and showing me the Paris she had enjoyed. After learning French at school for 5 years all those years ago at school, this was my first time hearing it spoken by real French people.

It would take ages to write about all we saw and i don't wish to bore people, but songs like "I love PAris in the Springtime", "under the bridges of PAris with you"... all came to mind.

I loved Notre Dame - especially the flying buttresses - and to think Napoleon walked there, as did the kings of France!

Sainte Chappelle was beautiful, we saw where Marie Antoinette was incarcerated at the Conciergerie before she was beheaded, enjoyed riding on the river admiring the beautiful architecture of Paris, loved wandering the streets, eating Snails ( sorry escargots), the incredible Museum of the Middle Ages with gorgeous tapestries and the remains of Roman bathhouse....

Then to top it all off, Sunday was Versailles - in temperatures over 30 degrees. Wow - could just see Leonardo di Caprio, the Sun king Louis XIV, strolling the corridors, waving to the common people from the balconies and the incredible gardens and fountains. Fantastic decadence, no wonder the common French people rebelled....

Quick trip under the Eiffel Tower ( queue to go up was over an hour and a half), paid my homage at the Arc de Triomphe and then flopped!

Yes, I would love to go back - maybe if I get very lucky ...

Then out to the airport the next morning - thunder and lightning- wasnt I lucky getting such beautiful weather for my weekend in Paris!

Long trip home via AbuDhabi and Etihad Airways ( nice!) - did get some sleep. Landed back in Sydney and then up early the next morning to go to NZ to shift house!

Adrenalin keeps you going !

UKpart2

Trains up to Birmingham - very painless way of travelling - Birmingham is a really mixed town - very old architecture in red brick from the 19th century and some ultra modern new buildings all populated by a very diverse ethnic population - more veiled women than i have ever seen, and obviously an immigrant town. Didnt know it was so full of canals and locks - some have been done up for the tourist trade and canal-boat tripping and others are rather woe-begone with sad signs of neglect. I took an hour trip which went through the modern buildings built beside and over the canals and through the old industrial area.
Conference went well in the business School of Aston University, the only hiccup was that the rooms are designed for a coool climate and the windows only opened 1inch and with temperatures in the high twenties it was very hot! The paper I presented apparently had two excellent reviews and the presentation resonated with other people and did start some discussions. Not as many people at the conference as one would wish for however.

Then on friday Anne and i headed off down to London to connect with the Eurostar to Paris. We went first class and it was a very restful trip but landing in Paris at GAre du nord at rush hour with two cases each was a "warm" reception.

More in Part 3

UK Part 1

Safely here in England - was a long flight - particularly the second leg which was 12 hours - I had a sleep in Singapore in a transit hotel where I got 5 hours good sleep and it was interesting being in a window seat ( next to young lovebirds) for 12 hours. View from the window was incredible some of the time when the clouds parted - the flight headed up from Singapore over the top of india Afghanistan etc - so brown completely barren for seemingly hours as we flew - then I think we msut have gone over Netherlands - very watery looking! sort of in a big arc. Plane circled for a while before landing in heathrow, so got lovely view. heathrow airport was bedlam - wait in the immigration line was over 45min and it coul dhave been longer if we had joined the queue 10 min later. Big flight from PAkistan came in just before us and they took forever to get checked. My friend Natasha , ex student, met me and took me home to her place in Reigate Surrey - they are on the outskirts of London so drive past lovely old English homes, "meadows" and lots of trees. Tash is pregnant with third child, little girl apparently after two boys, and it was great to have a couple of hours to catch up. Her 15 month old is a bundle of smiles and he knew all the songs I sing to Samantha - his hands started making circles as soon as I sang "The wheels on the bus go round and round...." let alone "If your are happy and you know it clap your hands..." . Her husband Liam and eldest Flynn had been out at Goodwood motorsport track for the day, so they had had long day - I thought Brett and the boys would have loved it! TAsh dropped me off at Gatwick House, English B&B hotel - in a house that was rebuilt after a German parachute mine destroyed the original very old house in 1941. The church next door is 14th century and next to it is a restaurant "Ye Olde Sixe Bells" that also comes from 14th century. The roof is old slate with heavy moss growing on it -very pictureesque but I quail to think of the maintenance. Out here, I think the local village is called Horley, in what is Surrey, it is like an English chocolate box scenery - quiet and peaceful but Gatwick is apparently only 5min drive away.It is the beginnings of summer here and England is at its best. All the trees are leafy, flowers are out, and weather is about 24 deg so lovely. I will be dropped off shortly to the GAtwick Airport station to get a train through London up to Birmingham. Then I am officially "on duty" from tomorrow.

Part 2 to follow