3rd time around

We're coming into our third winter in England.

Growing up in Sydney I spent my summer holidays at the local swimming pool. Summers were long and hot and humid with fantastically amazing thunderstorms. Some nights after it had been over 45 degrees for days on end, it would be so hot in our little fibro house with no air-conditioning and only one ceiling fan in the lounge room that we would sleep in the lounge with the front door and all the windows wide open - just to get some respite.

The tar on the road outside our house would bubble and stick to the bottom of our thongs. We'd stick a hose on the trampoline at our next door neighbours house and make an impromptu mini swimming pool. We'd get the slip'n'slide out in the backyard and lather it up with soap and slide around everywhere on it. We'd take the inners of truck tyres and styro-foam boards down to the river after school and brave the moving sands, submerged logs and deep holes and paddle around in the not-so-murky waters of the Hawkesbury River, watching the brave teenage boys jump off the bridge and swing from ropes attached to trees into the water.

I'd wear the same swimming cozzie day after day and be as brown as a berry by the end of summer with freckles all over my nose and natural blonde streaks in my brown hair.

We'd play outside until midnight on the weekends around the streets with the rest of the kids in the neighbourhood whilst our parents sat outside on the front lawns in folding chairs drinking beers and West Coast coolers listening to Tom Jones and Foster and Allen.

It seemed to last forever.

Ah, summertime in Sydney in the 80's.

But I digress.

You would think with all this summertime nostalgia that I would be dreading the cold, grey, misty and dreary England winters. But on the contrary. It's just starting to get cold again now. Yesterday for the first time I wore gloves, scarf and a winter coat to work. Last week I wore knee-high boots for the first time. My heating has been on every day for the past week. But as the darkness comes earlier and the frost settles thicker there is a slight feeling of anticipation in the air.

Winter in London is gorgeous. I can't wait to wake up in the morning, open the blind on our loft window to find that snow has piled up on it overnight. I'm really looking forward to deciding which ice-skating rink I'm going to try out this winter. I can't wait to feel all cosy and rugged up with layers of wool and gloves and boots and scarf and a hat whilst walking outside with the air all crisp and the sun shining to coming home to a warm centrally heated house and hot chocolate!

I love not feeling guilty about staying indoors and watching cooking shows and recorded tv shows and dvds all day long then cooking a big hearty dinner with gourmet sausages and mashed potato and gravy and drinking loads of red wine by candlelight.

They've starting putting up the beginning of the Christmas lights on Oxford Street already. And the lights in Regent St will go up soon and they are also just gorgeous!

It's such a nice time of year. My only wish is that, come the end of February when it's meant to be kicking over into spring that it gets real warm, real fast! Because there's nothing worse than a winter that won't go away.

Can I resist the urge to be juvenile?

Nope, probably not. But I will type this post with as much restraint as I can possibly muster.

Paul and his sister M went to Brussels for the weekend this weekend. So, in my time at home alone I thought I'd go to London Zoo. I've wanted to go for ages and Paul's really not keen so I thought this was the perfect opportunity. I was very disappointed actually. Growing up, I had been to Taronga Zoo in Sydney so many times and it's one of my favourite places. London Zoo pales in comparison, they would have half the amount of animals that Taronga has and the ones that they did have weren't that interesting. With the exception of the meercats, otters and monkeys. I spent ages watching them.

They have this Meet the Monkeys enclosure that you walk through which is in with the monkeys. You are literally face to face with them. And, if there wasn't a keeper in the enclosure with us watching our every move I so would have reached out to touch. One cheeky little monkey spied a little girl eating a cookie (her stupid mother clearly didn't read the signs) and jumped down and swiped it out of her hand. It was hilarious. Anyway, here's the cheeky monkey and here are the funny little meercats.

Okay, okay ... juvenility has gotten the best of me. Regardless of how mature and grown up and responsible one is, there are two things that will guarantee to make you giggle. Poo and farts. Always. Regardless. Get a bunch of grown ups in a room (generally with some wine) and eventually the conversation will at some point turn to poo or farts. It's just the way things are.

Anyway, I was in the gorilla viewing enclosure and this is what he did!And ... a bunch of about 20 people all stood there and watched. Mainly all adults. All making "Eewww gross," noises. A little bit of vomit even came up into my mouth. But still, I watched and I took photos. So of course, I had to share it with you ... all of you. I'm a child! But that's just how my mind works.

I'm going now to do something grown up, like make the bed or do some washing.

Corsican and Sardinian Reflections

Things I loved about our Corsican cycle tour:

• Getting my tongue around French phrases and actually being able to string sentences together in French and be understood by the locals;
• Cycling around the rugged coastline and overlooking the crystal waters 100's of metres below;
• The triumph of finally getting to the top of that hill or mountain knowing that we would have kilometres of downhill coasting to come with the wind in our hair;
• Discovering a gorgeous waterside restaurant in St Florent;
• Cycling through a mountainous desert and standing at the top of the mountains seeing just how far we had come;
• Staying in a remote mountain-top village called Piaggola in a B&B and sharing dinner with the owners and Belgian fellow travellers and having interesting conversations in broken English, Belgian, French and Italian;
• Meeting a Belgian man who himself had cycled Corsica 27 years earlier on his own carrying tents and all luggage on his bicycle;
• Stopping in small villages to eat picnic lunches of mortadella and cheese baguettes;
• Meeting French locals and English travellers in a funky bar in Ile Rousse and sharing Australian experiences with them;
• The friendly and helpful locals who were always greeting us with a warm smile and didn't mind our struggling broken attempt at the French language;
• Stopping off at roadside wineries and sampling and purchasing gorgeous Corsican muscats and rose';
  
• The welcoming smile on local's faces when we told them we were Australian and not British;
• Getting to see the sites up close and personal. Smell the smells of the villages, flora and fauna and really feeling like you are seeing the island at ground level without any barriers;
• Arriving at a destination after 30, 40 or 60kms of cycling to a long shower, afternoon nap and big big hearty dinner

And not so fun:

• Getting an awful heat rash after the first day of cycling due to sunscreen and sweat and feeling like a leper for 3 days afterwards;
• Numb bum - although our padded gel seat covers did work wonders;
• Undulating hills. Sometimes more up than down;
• Stifling heat in 2 star hotel rooms without air conditioning
• Last chance Saloon town of Ponte Leccia and our grumpy B&B owner;
• Bad transfer timings at the end of the tour, costing us up to €300 in taxis and car rental costs;
• Discovering the gorgeous port town of Bonifacio right at the end of the tour and not getting a chance to explore it further.

Things I loved about our time in Alghero, Sardinia:

• Arriving to discover that we had been upgraded to a nice new hotel as opposed to a B&B free of charge due to overbooking at the B&B, a welcome break after 5 days of gruelling cycling;
• Discovering the gorgeous medieval old town with it's labyrinth of cobbled laneways;
• Lazy on the stunning beach of Lazzaretto;
• Quaffing yummy local Sardinian red wine night after night;
• The restaurants and the gorgeous food and mine and Paul's competition of oneupmanship when it came to picking restaurants;
• Riding on the back of a Habana scooter;
• Catching up on sleep and relaxation;
• Stunning sunsets through ominous cloud formations;
• Friendly/helpful Italians;
• Cheese and salami for breakfast each day;
• Catching up on some reading;
• BBC World News and MTV in our hotel room - a godsend during the bad weather;
  
• Picking up leather jackets and demin jeans at bargain prices.

And not so fun:

• Only two days of sunshine for the duration of the 6 day stay;
• The stench of seaweed wafting through the town at high tide (rotten eggs!);
• Paying €35 to get our laundry done;
• Missing out on the boat tour to the renowned Neptunes Grotto due to bad weather and choppy seas;
• Wearing the same clothes four days in a row due to packing for summer weather as opposed to cooler autumn weather;
• Paying €1 to pee in unsanitary public toilets;
• The end of another summer holiday and facing the reality of the daily grind again and the post holiday blues that come with it.

Here's a link to more pics on my Flickr page: Corsica/Sardinia Holiday Snaps