Christmas and the start of 2011

After sharing my wonderful airport adventures I thought I should write a post to let you know the end of the story.......I did manage to fly out of France the next afternoon, wait a few hours in a Paris that was experiencing pouring rain. The flight to Munich finally left coming in only a "few hours" late around midnight. I waited patiently for my roller duffel bag to be regurgitated from the depths of the airport belly onto the luggage belt only to see it was a different colour! WHAT??? Yes, it was a 'dark' brown instead of its light latte. The whole bag was SOAKING wet. I mean SOAKING. Like the whole bag had been dropped into a swimming pool. All my Christmas presents were a mush and my clothes 2 inches up from the bottom wet. Wet wet wet.......all through. By now I really had lost my sense of humour and the woman at the counter told me to contact Air France.
Now, unless you have dealt with Air France before, you would not know that doing that would basically be a fruitless exercise. You would actually have more success picking the fleas off a wild camel. Their emails tend to get lost in cyber space and when you ring them about your problem their phones get cut off or you are advised that you rang the incorrect department only to be put on hold long enough to wash the car and cut your toe nails and finally get cut off once again. I scowled at her advice using some language unknown to man!

With renewed vigor I strutted outside to hail a taxi where a VERY friendly Turkish man drove me to my parents house using a road only used by the early settlers. I kept informing him there was a shorter route and he kept telling me he knew it. So after two days of exhilarating travel the lovely Turkish man ripped me off blind to the tune of some 40euros extra and because his meter told us the amount I paid it and got out only to find my parents sound asleep. I actually laughed at the idea of spending the night (it was now after 1am) sleeping on my soaked bag outside their front door in the snow and being found totally frozen dead the next day. I managed to squeeze my face sideways into the letterbox slot next to the door and yodel profusely until my darling Margret heard me and let me in. Ah! The utter joys of travel....

Did I mention we had a terrific Christmas in Munich with Becky and AJ who had managed to escape London as planned the day before? The 3 of us bolted the next day to purchase Christmas food, a tree and a host of decorations. Dad and Margret were happy at our enthusiasm and supported us with copious bottles of bubbly and wine. Bec and I managed to squeeze in a visit to the famous Christchild's market in Munich where it snowed making the whole experience totally magic.
We spent another day driving down to "that" most famous castle in southern Bavaria Neuschwanstein! A work of incredible architecture and utter extravagance. After that we headed to Austria for a super NYE watching and listening to the fireworks going off throughout the alps surrounding us. It IS awesome! All three of us worked like Trojans clearing our mountain road to the house with AJ valiantly steering the Toro to clear the long path for my Dad's car!


We skied for a few days after that but it just wasn't my ski year........after one fabulous afternoon of "blue sky" skiing and keeping up with them both, they led me home over "powder snow" meadows and a bit of forest thinking I would be fine as I had skied so well. Not to be! Having only ever skied groomed "runs" the powder was thick and buried my skis. On some turn I tumbled rather heavily losing EVERYTHING. I think it may have been a somersault that would have had Cirque Du Soleil offering me a job but twisting my ol' knees rendered me rather helpless for a while. I am still limping with pain going up or down stairs.........the circus job offer hasn't arrived yet.......I am waiting!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with loved ones and an even better New Year's. May 2011 bring everything and everyone you dream of.
I'm crossing my fingers! XXXX

End of July already............

The internet is WORKING!! This week was rather challenging with the internet line down here in France. My close friends will know that contact was intermittent but I am now very happy to say that we are "online" again. Yay! No more borrowing my landlords car and driving to the one very crowded MacDonalds in Ploermel to use their wifi, no more 100's of screaming french kids lining up for their burgers and setting my beloved laptop on tables smeared with mayonnaise and littered with greasy cold fries! I am grateful for small mercies! I am so excited to be online again, I got up at 5AM to sit and write!

The past weeks have once again flown. My time in France is peaceful, relaxing and July was spent discovering this area and visiting my Dad and Margaret. I found that taking a train to Munich was the same price as flying, so I flew from Rennes in mid Brittany to Munich, (via CDG in Paris). Our two weeks of wonderful family time was spent chatting over delicious meals and traveling back and forth to Austria on weekends in between my father's dialysis 3 times a week. I admire his brave and positive attitude to this committed medical treatment he now MUST have. It's tiring for him and after a 5-6 hour day of dialysis he comes home weary! Bless his heart, at almost 83, he smiles but the strain of the treatment is visible. I will go back to Munich before the end of September and once again at Christmas of course!

I can't remember the last time I spent a summer in Austria, my visits are usually in the winter time at Christmas. I forgot how stunning the surrounding alps are, how green the pastures, the colourful wild flowers and the majestic mountains. The beauty takes your breath away. The photos that follow are of our area, the mountain range is the Wilder Kaiser, (wild emperor) and that view is from our back door! I took a hike up the hill behind us and visited the cows with their bells tinkering around their necks. You can see the magnificent view of the valley in front of us. I felt like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music as I spun around in the warmth of the afternoon. No doubt it would have distressed the cows listening to me singing the "hills are alive..." You can look across the valley to the range on the other side and to the "right" see a long green line, that is a super skiing area and where I normally ski when over here. We are hoping for good snow this year!

In Munich we went out to a couple of homely and local eateries, delightfully casual and food to die for. Dad treated us to a lunch on the Starnberger See, a very long lake of some 20 kms long and 5 kms wide. The restaurant sits directly on the water with its own dock, in the photo you can see the water in the window reflection behind us. One afternoon whilst Dad was at dialysis I took the train into Munich city ; it was warm and the town busy with tourists. The main area is a "walk only" zone and just gorgeous. All the great shopping is there, but the surrounding buildings in Marienplatz are historic and stunning. Here you can see the entrance to the area named Staccus Karls Platz and then Marienplatz further down with its famous church! In the winter the area is filled with market tents and a magic Christmas market named the Christkindl markt.


Talking about driving, I bought a car yesterday!! Does that truly make me a resident of France now? I chuckle, in my quaint little cottage and now my quaint little old car! It's an old 2 door Renault Clio, 1996 and a diesel with 230,000 kms on the clock. Egad! It drives well though and the french equivalent of our Roadworthy was pretty clean. So WHO KNOWS how long it will last me, at worst I can just ditch it, for 1000 Euros I guess you can't get much, so fingers crossed it lasts my time here! It is super being mobile again........so Brittany countryside, here I come!