Back in the saddle.

It has been an exciting Christmas/New Year season for AGA and I.  Time passes swiftly when one is having fun.  

A few days before Christmas Day, we hired a car and motored down to Burgundy.  We rented a self-catering cottage in a small village called 'Change'.  This is in the midst of the vineyards and caves of Burgundy but of course, being winter, there were no luscious fields of bright green grapevines to be seen - just brownish sticks.  

The cottage was beautiful:

And contained a lovely old fireplace which we made full use of:

We ate plenty of nice food while we were on hols:

 (If one is in Burgundy (Bourgogne) then one must have at least one meal of Boeuf Bourguignon)

We bought the food for our Christmas Day meal at the local market but I had made the cake in advance to take with us:

There was no snow, but plenty of rain:

But when the grey clouds drifted away and the sun made its brief appearances, Change proved to be a lovely place, even in winter:

With lovely countryside:

Change, is just down the road (and around the corner) from the market town of Beaune.  A lovely town, home to the famous Hotel Dieu:

In the opposite direction is Autun with its atmospheric cathedral:

Medieval houses:

And various Roman ruins, including the so-called Temple of Janus:

 and the largest still existing Roman Theatre in western Europe:

Although it was the Christmas Season and most places were closed, we were able to visit at least one chateau.  In this case it was the Chateau de Sully:

(No photographs were allowed inside but I can you that it was lovely to walk around)

We also went to one of the most beautiful Romanesque Churches I have had the pleasure to visit:  The Abbaye de St Philibert, at Tournus (the weather was starting to pick up a bit):

Inside are some amazing mosaics from the 11th Century, hidden for centuries under the flooring, and only relatively recently recovered:

We also visited Cluny, with its wonderful monastic ruins:

* * * * * *

After a wonderful time in Burgundy, we slowly wended our way home, stopping en route in the Alsace region for a few days:

The main object of this part of our holiday was going to Colmar:

But I must admit that the village of Kaysersbourg pleased us more: 

Kaysersbourg has a delightful castle ruin, set among the vineyards and overlooking the town:

We also visited the Castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg.  This is no longer a ruin, having been restored by Kaiser Wilhelm II while the region was under German rule:

(This is the view from the top)

 Winter in this part of the world was (and remains) quite mild this year.  We did however find some snow:

And we were most fortunate to find and photograph a white stork.  I had never seen one before:

A few days in the Alsace with blue skies and sunny days, and then we were heading back home.  Coming with us were a couple of French late nineteenth century bedside tables, and a mid 18th Century clock case which was so long that it just fitted in to the car.  Even with the hood removed the case had to be pressed up against the rear vision mirror so that we could close the hatch.  This made for an interesting ride I can tell you!

These holidays have given me some nice ideas for future posts.

And now we are back at home, and back at work, and bracing ourselves for an eventful 2014, as we prepare for our journey back to Melbourne.  The current adventure is slowly coming to a close and the new adventure is champing at the bit to begin!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Merry Christmas!

Well here we are, a few days before Christmas.
In fact it is Christmas Eve Eve.
AGA and I are out in the wilds of Burgundy for our Christmas holidays and we are loving it.

We were expecting snow but no snow has come.  In fact it has been somewhat mild.
No hats and mittens.
No woolly coats.

It gets cold at night but the days are quite pleasant (mind you, a friend tells me that in New York the other day it was 20C!)

We are eating well:

And doing a spot of sightseeing:

It just remains for me to wish you all a merry Christmas and we will see each other again in early January.
Bye for now
Kirk

Wet Welsh Christmas (Part One)

AGA and I decided to spend Christmas far away from it all, on the Welsh borders.

It rained.

A lot.

There were long, long periods of dull grey weather as well.

But on the plus side we really appreciated the few periods of sunshine and blue skies!

* * * * *

This is how are journey started:



We drove from home to Calais and stayed there overnight.
Early on the following morning, I somewhat nervously drove the car onto the Chunnel train, bound for England.
It was my first time taking a left hand drive vehicle from Europe to England.  My nervousness was not helped by going on the Chunnel train as I do not like going under the ground (let alone under the sea as well!)  However I was pleasantly surprised.
No disasters took place.  The train didn't stop half way, or catch fire, or break down.  The Chunnel didn't collapse either; and we arrived safe and sound at Folkestone roughly half an hour after setting out.
We then motored upwards and westwards (through driving rain) until we reached the English Welsh border; made for Llangollen and arrived at our destination just a short drive outside the village of Llydiart y parc, by which time it had stopped raining:

Our cottage (roughly where the light is on in this photograph) was originally one of the out buildings of this farm but has been renovated into a very nice, modern (but not too modern) place where one can retire to be far away from the madding crowd.  The 'big house' is also rented out and at the time was catering for a family of nine people spending Christmas together.
The owners live on site, are courteous and genial without being over the top - in fact the perfect hosts.  We had stayed at this place before and once again, not only was our welcome warm but the accommodation was, as usual, excellent:

And so we spent a pleasant Christmas surrounded by beautiful countryside:

Sheep:

Various pheasants:

The odd llama:

And not much else:

* * * * * 

This area of Wales is associated with Owain Glyn Dŵr (known in England as Owen Glendower).  Just down the road from where we were staying is the site of his manor at Glyndyfrdwy:

It was here that Owain proclaimed, or had himself proclaimed, Prince of Wales in about 1400, and then led a very successful revolt against English rule before mysteriously vanishing:

The cause of Owain's revolt was a land dispute with his neighbour Reginald de Grey, who resided at nearby Ruthin:

Modern day Ruthin has some very nice buildings.  AGA and I decided that we could quite happily take over the Castle Hotel and reside there:

Reginald lived within the sturdy fortress that was Ruthin Castle.  When Owain Glyn Dŵr and his men came and attacked the town they destroyed it although they could not overcome the castle:

Now alas the castle is little more than a ruin within which was built the present day Victorian 'castle' (now a hotel):

Back at Glyndyfrdwy we went to the top of the mound where Owain had himself resided.  AGA took my photograph leaning against one of the old oak trees that now grace the summit:

I hope that Owain didn't mind that the descendent of the man who burnt his manor to the ground (for Reginald de Grey is my ancestor) was now strolling nonchalantly about the place, having his photograph taken!

Gloria!

Yes, well may we sing 'Gloria'!

Because thanks to the very nice man from Deutsche Telekom, the Internet is restored and we are once more in touch with the world.

In the interim we have been somewhat busy, what with Christmas fast approaching and the holiday Season soon to be upon us.

So what has been happening?

Well, the snow gradually disappeared:

The Squirrels were happy and kicked up their heels:

We lit the third candle on our Advent Wreath:

 A Fabulous Christmas hamper arrived, courtesy of my wonderful sister, Mme. Gibcus:

I got cracking with the Christmas cake which had been sitting idly by, getting tipsy on the brandy I had been feeding it with since its making:



Gathering together these ingredients:

I made the marzipan and covered the cake with it.  Now it is sitting silently slumbering, wrapped in plastic, awaiting the moment when it is covered in royal icing:

Then it was time to put up the Christmas Tree.

I admit it is a fake tree with electric lights coming out of the branches.  We are most often away at Christmas time and so having a real tree, in this apartment, seems somewhat wasteful.

Am I being gauche if I say that when we grew up in Melbourne my parents had a wonderful, huge, fake Christmas Tree make out of thick, silver tinsel covered wire?  Our first year in Australia saw a housing strike and we were forced to live for a long time at the Migrant Camp in a place called Broadmeadows.  Christmas was spent there as we waited for the strike to be over so that they could begin building our house.  My Father (who always held Christmas very close to his heart) went out one night, crept into the nearby army artillery range, cut down a small pine tree and brought it back so that we could have a tree just as we did in England, but the heat caused a lot of the needles to fall out and so my parents decided that in future, fake would be better.  

AGA's family always had a real tree in a pot.  After Christmas it would be transported to their place in the country, and planted, which I think would have been great fun to do, but I must say that I really loved that fake, silver tinselled Christmas Tree of ours!  It holds many happy memories for me.

We don't have any vintage decorations for our tree. Instead we are creating our own for the future!  We have bought our Christmas Tree ornaments from Christmas Markets here in Germany, in London and in Paris:

This glass Church ornament was bought by my Mother when she was in Paris a couple of years ago:

The goose is a lead ornament from Copenhagen.  The teddy bear was made in a sheltered workshop in Prague, and the reddish oiled glass balls come from Vietnam::

Finally we have this hand-coloured German print of the Christ Child riding a stag through the snowy forest.  It comes the 1920s I think and sits in a rather wonderful frame that we had bought seperately:

I hope that our carefully chosen Christmas decorations will become the vintage ones that our nieces and nephews will inherit and enjoy - if they are good to their ageing uncles!

SO that it what happened when we were without the internet.
And now we are even busier.  I have mince pies to make for respective workplaces as well as some for us.  We have bags to pack and preparations to me made as this year we will be having a Welsh Christmas.  I can't wait!