Strasbourg et la Suisse

Merry Christmas everyone!

We decided to get away for a few days before Christmas, and Laura found some cheap flights to Basel. It's a city in the north of Switzerland and is a stone's throw from France. Because of its proximity, and because I hadn't yet been to France, we did a day trip to Strasbourg:
La cathédrale de Strasbourg. In la place de la cathédrale were some fantastic Christmas markets, you'll find some photos on Laura's flickr.

Laura in "Petite France". You might be a little confused as to why a French city has a place called "Petite France". Well the short story is that Strasbourg is so close to Germany, it actually has historically been a German city. This part of the city is architecturally quite French, hence the name.

We then spent a day in Basel, before heading to Luzern/Lucerne. Here's a picture of the chapel bridge; apparently it's the most photographed monument in Switzerland.

After a day exploring Luzern, we headed up Mt. Rigi. The weather above the cloud layer was fantastic, but down in the valleys it was very dark and dull. Here's me on a toboggan. Not being familiar with snow at all, Laura and I hired one and decided to ride it down the toboggan track. Despite the four year old chidren screaming down it at ridiculous speeds, we approached with great trepidation. And it was in fact rather scary. As you can see, there's no steering as such, so a change in direction if effected by a combination of leaning and dragging your feet. This is all good fun except for the unfenced drop-offs on the outside of a few of the corners... But what a view huh?

Big rocks, Ponies and Deer.

Just thought I'd get that one out of the way. It's um... what's its name... Stonehedge? Standhenge? Something like that. Anyway, it's some rocks; we took some photos. It was pretty cool, but I couldn't feel any archaic, druidic power emanating through the cosmos or anything.

We made the trip out there because we decided to go and check out the New Forest. It's a really nice spot, not unlike Margaret River except for the lack of wine and the presence of ponies like this one:
Not to be outdone by Laura and her pony, I made friends with this deer:
(ok, ok, it was at a wildlife park, and it was probably just looking for food)

Well as the title says, so the post has been.
N.

Borough Markets

Yesterday we went on an outing to Borough Markets in Southwark which is a huge food market selling heaps of fresh produce. We went to the BBC Good Food show last weekend and this was a million times better, plus it was free!

They sell all sorts of fruit and veg, cheese, olives, cakes, meat, seafood and heaps of other things. There's also lots of stalls selling burgers, roast meats, toasted cheese sandwiches (see below), soup, mulled wine and just about everything you could think of. It was really busy and obviously quite a huge tourist attraction as i heard a number of different accents although mostly American.

These toasted cheese sandwiches smelled amazing and the cheese was being shaved off giants wheels of cheese. Yum!

Also, who knew brussel sprouts grew like this?! How cool.

It was SO cold yesterday so Nate got a hot cup of spiced New Forest cider. It was quite delicious and we also picked up a visitors booklet for the New Forest as we're off there next weekend. So I'd say we'll be visiting the cidery.

I spotted this paella that i wanted for lunch.

Here's what it looked like on my plate. A bit on the pricey side at 7 pounds but hey this is London and we were at a touristy spot. At least it was tasty.

And Nathanael decided on the roast pork roll with cooked red onions, capsicum and tzatziki. Also tasty.

We then walked along the Thames up to Southbank to check out the Christmas markets. The wind along the river felt as though it was coming in direct from the arctic, so i couldn't really resist a pic of this optimistic ice cream van. It must have been 5 degrees. Even English people aren't that crazy!

Nate's first snowman!!

Yes it has snowed again in merry old London town. Hooray!! When I got up, it had just started, so we went for a walk on a mission to build a snowman. On the way I made my first snowball, thus:


As snowman construction was being completed, the snow flakes got BIG, well, bigger. Think 20 and 50 cent pieces.
And here's our snowman, which is my first one ever. No jokes about size please: as you can see above snow wasn't exactly thick on the ground.

Southwater

Nate and I went down to Southwater (where i lived as a kid) in West Sussex, to catch up with some family friends. It was Guy Fawkes weekend, so the boys went to get some fireworks at the local shop. Lucky for them it was quite late in the day so the fireworks were buy one get TWO free! Here's a picture of Mark with the "Alien Invasion" which was the highlight of our fireworks show. Two fuses and 48 shots!

Here's a very excited Nathanael with the rockets that nearly killed us all.


Our fireworks display in action.

It was remembrance Sunday so we went into Horsham to watch the parade and the ceremony at the Cenotaph. Here's a pic of Nate, Claire and Mark and Cato (with their medals). Oh yeah and it was freezing.

On Sunday night we went around to Mike and Linda's place for Sunday dinner. I mentioned that I'd been looking for banoffee pie so Claire kindly made one for us, so i ended up having two desserts as Linda had made an apple crumble too!

Mike and Linda now live in the house next door to where we used to live so that's quite funny. The picture of me and Mark is with a rock in the front garden that used to seem like a giant boulder to us. Obviously it's not so massive now. haha!

Here's a pic of us all. Linda, Maria, Mario, Harry, Mark, Claire, Me, Michael and Nate (and Ziggy the dog too)


And here's a picture of Maria and Mario's little boy Harry. He's just too cute! And he loved the camera flash so he was an easy subject. haha.

Visit to Macclesfield

Ok, very slow as per usual but a few weeks ago Nathanael, my cousin Richard and I went up to visit my Uncle and Aunt in Macclesfield (it's about 20 miles from Manchester). We also caught up with my cousin Becky and her family(pictured below). Her partner Ben, baby Molly and the mischievous little Louie who although looking a bit pissed off in this photo is actually one of the loveliest little boys you'll meet. In all fairness he was asked to pose for a photo when he was busy playing. haha. It was great to see them as i haven't seen Becky since i was a kid and I've never met the rest of her family.

Molly :)

Louie posing for photos happily. I think he has a promising modelling career ahead:P

My uncle and Aunt had just had an extension built and the builders had offered to pay for an extension warming party (which is a fantastic idea!). So we had stacks of platters arrive and i managed to completely stuff myself as i usually do when a buffet is involved. Apart from the food another highlight would have to be this amazing fridge. It makes coffee! Brilliant! I'm pretty sure that Nate's parents will want one.

Here's a pic of my cousin Richard, my Aunt Pam and my Uncle Terry (who is my Mum's brother if you were wondering).

On Sunday Terry and Pam took us to check out a local National Trust building called Little Moreton Hall. I'm not sure if you can see from the picture here but the whole building is buckling from the weight of the top floor. Inside the house all of the floors are on serious angles and it's quite weird. And there's a ghost on the top floor too. Spooky! After that we went back home for a cup of tea and more cake and then we went out for a Sunday lunch at a lovely pub. All in all a great weekend, minus the ridiculously long train ride home stopping at every single station!

Nate's first snow. In October!

Here's a photo of the house across the road with snow on the roof. And it's not even winter yet! Bring on a white Christmas!!And a car across the street too.


I know, I know, it's not much snow, but hey, it's the first snow I've ever seen in real life, so give me a break, huh?