A few loose ends

My first day off work! Next year, I go straight into my new job for six weeks or so, and then a long break in New Zealand - seems just about perfect! First, a few words on stuff I haven't blogged about/follow-ups. Yesterday I actually looked at the stats page of my blog and the post with the most hits over the last week was the last day of my trip to Ukraine in 2011. I ended up looking back through my whole trip and really enjoyed the walk down memory lane. So it's a reminder to keep blogging even if it feels like I'm the only one reading it...

• Edinburgh: One thing I forgot to say last time was how marked the differences were in security between Edinburgh and Brussels. How quickly one gets used to seeing armed police and soldiers everywhere you go! It seemed really strange to me to see the Christmas market, for example, without armed (wo)men standing guard outside. I don't know how I feel about that. As we saw in Paris, it doesn't have to be a big, well-publicised event for it to be targeted. The Sydney siege was in a Lindt chocolate shop of all places. But I suppose it's more about reassuring people they can still go places like the Christmas market and the Grand Place than anything else.

I got a few more photos from other people's cameras - my birthday brownie

I had to take a photo of a photo since I don't have a scanner, so this is not the best quality. I feel I was tricked here because Caro said "let's really go for it with the photo, none of this namby-pamby stuff" and then those two do incredibly photogenic cute little scared faces, and I'm the marauding hell demon next to them

That wasn't my only cake of the weekend. I'm so excited!

Pre-dinner silliness

C&C and our indian feast

• In "look how fancy I am" news, the other week I was invited to a party at an Ambassador's residence! I didn't exactly cover myself in glory while I was there. It was pretty crowded, so while trying to skirt around some people I managed to walk into a massive lampshade and then while trying to fix the shade I had knocked askew, I tipped my (first and undrunk) drink on the floor. That wasn't too bad, I think only the girl right behind me saw. But then the Ambassador came up to us, introduced himself by his first name and asked when the choir was going to perform. I totally didn't recognise him and (politely) said I didn't know, maybe he should ask that guy over there. Then he (nicely) said he was the Ambassador and wandered off. Oops. So this is more "why I shouldn't be invited fancy places". It was fun seeing everyone's party frocks though, and I talked to the Ambassador's wife later, who was very nice.

In Grand Place after the Ambassador's party

A fondue sandwich. What an age we live in!

Jules at the Christmas market

Light show in the Grand Place

Panorama at the Grand Place

• See how I'm not wearing a coat there? I do tend to run hot, but it's definitely unseasonably warm here. The coat has only come out on a couple of occasions, with most days getting into the low teens or at least double digits. It's like winter in Auckland! Way back in October, we even had a day in the beach at Ambleteuse in France. It was sunny and about 16 degrees, we couldn't believe it. I don't know if it's going to suddenly get cold next year, but so far it has been incredibly mild. I still can't believe the photos below are from October in northern France though!

The beach at Ambleteuse

People on the rocks looking for mussels

A feast of wine and local cheese

Catching shrimp and playing with the timelapse function on the iphone

That's about it, just counting down to a few days in Luxembourg for Christmas and then a quiet new year to recharge the batteries. Merry Christmas all!

A sunny day chez les Ch'tis

As mentioned in the previous post, we were treated on Sunday to a warm(ish), (mostly) sunny and much less windy day than on Saturday. As you can imagine, our hearts were gladdened when we stepped out on to the balcony to see this view:

We grabbed Susi the dog and headed down to the beach. Jules had been talking for a while about childhood exploits gathering mussels, crabs (mostly too scary) and shrimp on the coast here. I misunderstood how you got the shrimp, and thought it involved wading in the same sort of small rock pools where you got mussels, so I declared my intention not to partake. However, you actually get them by dragging a small (in our case) net along the sea floor and scooping them up. Turns out it's so much fun! I was inappropriately dressed and hence got a wet bum, but totally worth it. We only gathered around a dozen shrimp over the course of 20 minutes or so, plus I caught a baby crab a couple of inches long and two baby flat fish (these all went back in the sea, of course). I'd never seen baby fish/seafood like that, the flat fish were almost transparent, they were so small. We did cook and eat the fresh shrimp, although Jules grossed me out by pointing out that several (mostly the biggest ones) were covered in eggs. Ugh, I would have returned them to the sea too had I realised. I've eaten caviar, but gotta draw the line somewhere.

View of Ambleteuse from the beach

Me and Susi - obviously still a bit windy

Not Susi on the shore

Me and tiny camouflage man

Fisherman Jules having a Daniel Craig moment

Which I suppose makes me the woman in the white bikini, whatever she's called. Disclaimer: I've never seen a single Bond film

We realised while splashing around that the sea wasn't actually that cold, so we dropped Susi back off at the flat, I changed into a bikini, and we hurried back to the beach for a dip in the North Sea. Very brave! It was not that bad when you sucked it up and jumped in, and we even lay on the beach a bit afterwards, until the quickly-advancing tide threatened to dunk us again.

In the afternoon, we took another drive, this time to Blanc Nez, Gris Nez's twin, so named because it has white chalk cliffs similar to the Dover cliffs on the other side of the Channel. We actually parked near Escalles (I think) and walked up to a height of 134m or 151m, depending who you ask. I found the path, covered with myriad small, sharp stones, quite trying, I must admit (I had changed into thin-soled sandals). But at least I did better than Susi the dog, who had to be carried a fair bit of the way. She is 16 years old though. It was worth the walk though, as we were rewarded with beautiful views of the sea, Calais, Cap Gris Nez and all the way over to England.

Driving to Blanc Nez

Hello England!

Jules lets Susi rest her little legs

The land side of the cape

Susi selfie!

Looking towards Gris Nez

In the direction of Calais

Inland

View to Calais

I assume this village is Escalles 

Me, Jules and Susi

Okay, that was probably too many photos. But it really was pretty. The weather in August around these parts has not been too flash most of the time, so it was great to have a little taste of summer as the season draws to an end. Even more so since the forecast for the weekend had not been great, so it was a lovely surprise. We really had a good time and were just sad that it was so short! Luck definitely plays a part, but I'll think twice before badmouthing the Nord-Pas-de-Calais again.

In defence of Northern France

As some of you know, I lived for a while in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais way back in 2007. When I mention this fact to French people, they normally get an expression on their faces like "why on earth would you do that?" And much of the time, I would agree. For the most part, I found the accents incomprehensible, the weather abysmal, and the landscape unremarkable. Most of the time I was there, we were traipsing about WWI sites or cleaning children's dormitories, which doesn't help I suppose. One thing I rarely got to do was to go to the coast - and if I had, the weather the spring/summer/autumn I was there wasn't often beach-worthy.

Still, when Jules suggested we spend a weekend at his family's beachfront apartment in the small town of Ambleteuse, I thought, why not? Might be fun to see the old stamping grounds. My heart sank a little as the forecast for the weekend predicted more and more rain, but hey, free weekend break can't be too bad.

You'll probably have divined from the title of the post that it actually turned out to be a great weekend. We turned up in the dark late on Friday night, the wind blowing so hard along the sea front that I could barely open my car door, and it continued to howl around the house all night until we woke up to a grey and extremely blustery day on Saturday morning.

Undaunted, I put on my best tramp's assemblage of Jules's mum's too-small tennis shoes, rolled-up leggings, a dress and a mismatched cardigan, and we headed out to the beach with Susi, Jules's dog, to clamber around on the rocks while it was low tide (the beach actually disappears altogether at high tide).

Jules and Susi on the rocks

I don't want to badmouth Susi, but she did a poo right behind us while we were taking selfies. Everyone's a critic

I have so many where I look like I'm doing awkward Russian mail-order bride poses, when I'm actually trying to keep my hair from flying everywhere

Little red riding Susi gets a cuddle after her beach trip

In the afternoon, we took a trip to nearby Wimereux, because the weather still wasn't great and I wanted to buy some photo frames (no luck). The sea was at its peak by now, dramatically pounding the sea wall and sending plumes of spray up into the air and washing on to the promenade.

That's the face of someone wondering if they're about to get drenched

High tide at Wimereux

 

Stopping at a pretty bay between Wimereux and Ambleteuse

Panorama of the bay

We finished the day off with a drive to Cap Gris Nez, the closest point between France and England. I remembered once taking a drive up the Côte d'Opale (as it's called) when I was living there, and how pretty it was. There wasn't quite as much coastal views as I remembered, but it still was very pretty.

View from Cap Gris-Nez to Cap Blanc-Nez (and sheep)

Somewhere on the way to Cap Griz-Nez

So, it might have lived up to its reputation for fairly inclement weather, but luckily it didn't rain, and the wind, while extremely strong, wasn't all that cold. And it turned out the next day would bring us blue skies and sunshine...