Bath

Had a lovely weekend visit to Bath on the 21st-22nd January. Hilary, Cat, Kath and I drove over from London to see if we could cram in A quick drive by Stone henge on the way and then more time once arrived looking around Jane Austen Centre, The Assembly Rooms and the National costume museum, the roman baths, the circus and the crescent. I hadn't seen any Roman ruins yet so the Bath's were absolutely fascinating.

Hogmanay

Edinburgh is beautiful. Its got to be one of the prettiest cities in the UK with the castle looming above, beautiful Georgian buildings, and when I was there, with a haze of white frost and melting snow dusting everything.

As I happily wandered around by myself over the city, up to the castle, through the old town and then back through some beautiful Georgian streets, I frequently imagined myself in the same place at some other time in history. Its a great place for daydreamers!

The streetparty at Hogmonay was lots of fun too, we heard Texas and KT Tunstall with El Presidente as well as a bit of Boy George doing Karma Chamelion and the bloody Proclaimers doing 5,000 miles which as my family well know, I DETEST! Can I just say that even in the middle of all those Scots no-one could tell me what "havering" was... stupid song.... but anyway, the rest was good!

Some of the papers touted 225,000 people at the street party, but we only personally met 100,000 of them (they all said to say hi by the way) so I can't confirm of deny the figures.

Sorry about the terrible photo Dave, but I'll use it as ranson until you get Bansi to flick me some better ones!

Parlez Vous Francais?

I arrived in France late on the Wednesday before Christmas. I left London for Geneva first (or Geneve as the Francophites say) and decided to save Paris for another time, perhaps spring. There were many planes, trains and automobiles to get me to Moutiers, which isn't too far from where Nicole and Hugh live in Naves up in the Alps - but eventually I made it.

It was pitch black when I arrived late at night, so I can't tell you how excited I was to see the mountains and the snow when I got up on Thursday morning. The small village that Nicole and Hugh live in must have some of the best views anyone in the world could boast of! Mountains, valleys snow and other small little villages dotted up and down the slopes.

Their house is just wonderful too. Hugh has done most of the renovations on it himself and its so warm and friendly when you walk in the door with Nik's rustic hearts to great you at every moment. I stayed in one of the newly finished guest rooms, dubbed the 'Princess Room' and I did indeed feel like a princess.

Of course, the house rightly and deservedly revolves around the children - Bailey and Milo (pictured right). We became great friends over the week and I miss them already. Nik's not biased - I agree that they are perfect and priceless. (Mum, Please don't tell Ralph I said that!)

Christmas was great, Nicole and I decided to have a glass of bubbles on Christmas eve, which turned into 3 bottles and a slow Christmas morning... None-the-less Santa did manage to find me way up there and Hugh and I had a lovely day recovering infront of the fire while poor Nicole had to go to work.

That night, we had 10 for Christmas dinner - with everything good thing you can imagine and more. Champagne, prawns, foie-gras, smoked salmon, turkey, roast vegies, sticky-date pudding, Christmas pud, mince pies, brandy butter chocolates and buckets of baileys and cointreau or whatever you wanted. Excessive and lots of fun.