So now we are in the land of the French (that would be France). Kent and I arrived in the dark last night and this morning I am blessed to be sitting in the Southern French Countryside, outside (OUTSIDE) where it feels about 12 degrees (not zero, or minus anything), drinking an espresso (George Clooney style) and basking in winter sunshine. I am rugged up to the nines and receiving lovely little face kisses from the amazing sun. Everyone is busy doing something except me. How FABULOUS!! Nathan has taken Nina to piano lessons, and doing supermarket shopping, Christel is at work, Kent and Gustav have gone down the lane ‘past the truck with the four dogs and then over there’ (should I want to join them) for a footy game (yeah, me and footy –hilarious).
mmm, hiiiii sunshine!
It is a holiday from holidays. About as indulgent as it gets. This morning I was woken up by a real live cockadoodle doo – delicious! Christel and Nath’s house is over 200 years old and just gorgeous. I’m talking whitewashed walls, creaky floorboards and about a gazillion exposed beams. I am in interior heaven. There is about 100 people living in this town, which makes a nice change from the hustle and bustle of the city.
This is Nina feeding the donkeys. I don't think I have ever seen a real live donkey before today. I felt a little bad because I didn't realise there was an electric fence, so I urged little donkeys to come forward and it may have received a little electric shock. We found a non-electric bit after that. And after we visited the donkeys, we walked down farm roads and picked wildflowers to make a fairy bouquet. Yep, that's how Enid Blyton my day was.
Last night was our first proper meal in a while – you don’t realise how much sandwiches are NOT a complete meal until somebody sits you down with soup, slow cooked vegetables and a slab of beef cheek. And veal. And bread. And wine. Trying to figure a way to sneak into the fridge at a later time and shovel some more in my mouth when noone’s looking. Now may be the optimum time.
Living room (one of) - complete with old piano and awesome house cat.
So this morning I lolled a bit, ate some toast with homemade jam (so very wonderful) and played exquisite corpses with Kent and Gustav – what a stressful game. The pressure of trying to be clever, creative and then draw well became too much for me. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, exquisite corpses is the game where you fold a sheet of paper into three, and each person draws their own head, body or set of legs, each getting more ridiculous than the last.
The back garden. (I KNOW!)
So the smell here is out of this world (well not really, because I am going to describe it, because I know you will all know the smell) – those of you who have enjoyed many winters at the Sorrento house (which is LOTS of you), just think the sunshiniest day there, when the fire is going and you are chopping wood outside, and, (I can’t believe I am being sentimental about this) it’s not too cold for a couple of flies to be buzzing around. BLISS! Ok they are not flies but a giant mega bug-fly which is actually a little bit scary. I think I’ll go inside now.
Country living. The best. Too easy to just stand around and breathe. Very good for the soul.
Kent being a Husband of Joy and taking my bag for me :)
In terms of our flight here. Well. We trained to Copenhagen airport (so easy) in the morning, and checked into Easyjet (less easy) – for an airline who claims to not issue boarding passes (to make it easier), it seemed very strange that rather than check in, we had to use a self serve machine FIRST, to ISSUE our boarding passes, which then had to print, and THEN we checked in. Oh my god.
Security was same same – Kent for whatever reason, seems to always get frisked, even when he doesn’t beep. They must take a liking to his physique. My bag got confiscated, quite mysteriously, and a “oh my god someone slipped some crack in their while I was standing in line” did momentarily flash before my eyes. A very peroxided, tanned security man, brought me my bag.
“This your bag” (Think slightly mocking sexy euro accent)
“Erm, yes.” (Think a bit retarded)
“Ok.” He starts to open it (I am clearly too retarded to do it myself)
He pulls out my half filled water bottle (Ok, so maybe I am retarded)
“Aaaw whoops, I forgot about that!”
He looks at me, and presents the bottle to me:
“We can throw this away for you, or you can drink it all right now” in a very challenging tone. I then did a western-Clint-Eastwood-Cowboy-Squint – I am pretty sure he wanted to test if it WAS crack, or meth, or bomb-making water, to see if I would crumble.
As it was not, I opted to drink it. I did not get super high or explode, so was deemed not so terrorist-y. I then freaked out:
“Oh no, I have a bag of dried apricots in there, do I have to eat all those too?!”
“You know what happens if you do that don’t you?”
“Erm…”
“You fart yourself away. Have a nice flight!”
Then we all funnelled into a mash of people to get onto the plane – no lines here sir. Every man for himself here – I lost Kent pretty early on, but forgave him when he saved me a seat. Probably the fartiest, foot odouriest flight I have ever been on, with some of the roughest air hostesses I have ever met. Essex chicks man. They scary.
“Awrigh, yeh wanneh put yeh coawt on yeh lap awrigh, wes got no rum anyweh else.”
Lots of aggressive baggage compartment closing. And scary single mums with lots of hair extentions and bling. (Their babies had even more bling. And probably hair extentions.)
Then came a gulp of fresh airport air. Slightly less farty. A really farty day altogether really. And then 5 hours of Gatwick, or what I like to call (so witty really) Gatshit airport. Ergh. However what with all the going back through passport control, then through to baggage claim, then to north terminal to eat evil british airport food, then back to south terminal to attempt check in, then check in, then passport control, some more security (no frisking this time, though I did watch a very luscious European chick rip her jeans off when she was getting frisked as her studded underpants we alerting security) and then about 4 hours of teas, hot chocolates, coffees and a lot of cards. Kent and I have decided to have a continuous score card for the whole trip, starting from my birthday last Saturday. And then, God’s gift to Britain, Pret a Manger saved the day, with it’s luscious affordable sandwiches and snacks. Mmm bacony sandwiches. No Lucy! No more sandwiches for you! Aaaargh!
just had to put this in somewhere - we went to the lego shop in copenhagen. yep, that would be a self-serve wall of lego. like a candy store. AMAZING!!
Did I mention that there are views of the Pyrenees Mountains here? Cuz there are. They are snow-capped. Yep.
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