France Mar 2012 - Macon

Tues 6/3 to London

We left Bristol on Tues arvo, as Nic managed to get off a bit early from work. At one point we were making great time.... Then there was a crash on the M25 and we sat there for 90 mins with the engine off! Ah the joys of travel in the UK. Still, we arrived in time for a curry with Mike and Catherine and our host, Nicko




Wed 7/3 to Reims

A day of frantic activity on both sides of the English Channel started early with Nic off to lecture to a group of orthodontists in the central London. Stuey too caught the train to town, to pick up a bass from Duncan Goode at English National Opera. We reconvened back at Purley then shot off to Folkestone to catch the 2.20 train thro the tunnel, which we just managed. Although we have been thro the tunnel a few times now, it never ceases to amaze how efficient it is, so much better the ferry options of yesteryear. Next was an awful 2.5 hr drive to Reims; it was very wet, with lots of standing water on the carriageway, so overtaking was a leap of faith. We got to Reims ok, checked in then hit the city for a meal at Brasserie Flo. Nic went for the mainstream steak frites option, Stuey opted for the Alsace sauerkraut and sausage supper! Yum.

Thurs 8/3 to Macon

We left Reims early, to embark on our 3.5 hr drive down to Macon. The weather had cleared, it was a beautiful bright sunny Spring day. We arrived for lunch and joined Bob, Liz, Hugh, Chris, Ian, Janet and Norman. Bob Reeves is our neighbour in Clifton – he has a share of Vergecosse vineyard and holiday accommodation in the village of Vergisson in the Macon region of Burgundy, http://www.vergecosse.com/

It is located in a magic spot nestled in the hills among the vines. The parcels of grapes are very small and are shared among owners – there is a very good reason for this as the region is knows for its micro-climates. Hail showers have been known to pass thro and devastate a small area, leaving the adjacent parcel untouched. Stuart was flogged by Hugh and Norman at dice, fortunately not for money or wine.

Next up was a wine tasting session at Domaine Saumaize-Michelin, http://www.domaine-saumaize-michelin.com/presentation.htm

Roger and Christine manage the property and vineyard – from accommodation bookings, to growing the vines and making the wine. We tried a dozen or so chardonnays, mostly Pouilly-Fuisse.

And the evening was rounded off with coq au vin cooked by Laurence, a Doctor who has given up medicine to cook. Am sure this was a wise choice as she was no doubt a superb quack, but her food is glorious. Yum once more.

Fri 9/3 Beaujolais

After a traditional French breakie of breads and croissants Bob took us on a stunning drive thro the local villages to Chirouble to try some Beaujolais reds. The Burgundy region is divided into 5 areas, spread out over 100s of kms – Chablis, Cote de Nuit, Cote de Beaune, Macon and Beaujolais. Bobs property is in Macon, very close to the border with Beaujolais. Reds in this region are based on the Gamay grape, as against Pinot Noir further north around Beaune. Gamy makes a rustic, gamey, earthy animal wine, quite different to anything else. In true French fashion, they flaut the rules in Beaujolais – vines are not trelliced, but left to stand alone. Our memory of Beaujolais had been jaundiced thanks to the Beaujolais Nouvelle craze in the 1980s, where lots of young, rough reds hit London around October, and everyone got very excited about it. Thankfully that trend has abated...except in Japan. Enough said. Bob’s secret Beaujolais cellar lead to our first purchase of the tour.

Next stop was lunch by the river Soane. We are sure that Bob knows everyone in these parts. Entree plus main plus wine for 13 euros – it was no wonder the place was full. And the customers who were “working” clearly were into the French tradition of a long lunch!! Then it was back to Verecosse to sleep off lunch, to go Rogers to buy lots of wine and test the Mazda’s suspension to the max, then off out to eat, of course. This time at a local restaurant in Vergisson. Yum, yum, yum.

Xmas 2011

Xmas was spent in Mo's pad in Stokie Newington, NE London. The three of us has a 40-something Xmas (one of us only just made it into that group mind you) as we have no mates and didnt want to share our noice wines with anyone else.

It was a quiet day, the gals had a run, I was suffering with man-flu, so opted out. We lounged around, made a few skype calls and dining like kings and queens - Mo produced wonders in the kitchen. The goose was glorious, with all the trimmings.

Nickys early energy in the first video has clearly dwindled by the second one, later in the arvo and a few bottles worse for wear!!


The skype call to Buxton summed up many up there quite nicely, V cheating at board games, Jon being antisocial and Ewan performing!

Ile d'Oleron Dec 2011

In December 2011 Chris and Sharon Gibbs allowed us to visit thier wonderful beach house Ile d'Oleron on the Atlantic coast of France, roughtly half way down the country. We go back a long way - Nickys first job after graduating in Jan 1986 was house officre at Edgware General Hospital - Sharon was the previous post holder and was senior house officer for Nic's first 6 months.


After the disappointment of getting a flat on Friday 17th, we missed our ferry. Mazda, in thier wisdom, dont put a spare wheel and tyre in new cars nowadays, and the dodgy punture repair kit didnt work. This is a car Mazda, not a push bike. So we were towed to a quickfit place, left the car and stayed with Jane Young, and the kids Ben, Alice and Suzanna, who were all home. It was wonderful to see the guys.

On Saturday we got the car fixed up with new tyres then shot to Portsmouth, and got the ferry over to Caen before staying overing just South of Caen. The following day we did the 5 hour drive South to Ile d'Oleron.

 

The island is fantastic - jutting out into the Atlantic, it must be hugely popular with the locals in peak season. It was pretty empty when when we were there, but still a wonderful place to visit. We cycled round the paths to get the feel of half of the island. Its full of mussle and oyster producers, and lots of birds interested in the former! Chris and Sharon's house is fantastic - the garden shed had suffered a little in a recent storm, so we ended up trying to patch the roof felt, most of which was in the garden!

 

We took a day out to drive down to Bordeaux, on the first of what was to be a series of wine tours in France. Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear this! Bordeaux is a big region, with sub appellations spread over a large area. We decided to focus on the Left bank of the Gironde, the Haut-Medoc, and specifically the Margaux, St Julien, Pauillac and St Joseph appellations. One of the aims was to learn more about French wine, which can be a bit of a mystery. For example three wines in Pauillac are premier grand crus, the top drawer of the 1855 classification, and they are Latour, Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild. In good years these go for over 1000 euros a bottle! Just across the creek, there are some 2me crus, which are arguably just as good, in neighbouring St Julien, and they sell for a fraction of the price. Leoville Barton is one of our favourites - so it was great to see the vines, the chateau, and to stock up on some serious clarets!

I hate to say it, but however rude we Brits can be about the French, we really are very fond if thier country and its produce.

 

Xmas Letter 2011

Xmas 2011 marks the end of our first full year back in the UK. It has been an eventful year!

Nicky is Professor of Paediatric Dentistry at Bristol University. The main reason for taking the job was cleft lip and palate research – she is running a project with test centres all over the UK, so getting to know motorway services and the Premier Inn chain rather too well. She is running another cleft project in Australia and nipped back over there twice in 2011. Unfortunately things didn’t work out as planned and Nicky resigned in November – she will leave in March 2012 and after that....who knows. Wait for the next instalment, Xmas 2012!

As always, she is as fit as a butchers dog – Clifton is great for running and she is doing plenty of that. At least one of the household is fit and in shape. And the viola came out this year. It had most of its strings still on and not too much dust. Nicky is playing with the Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra who perform at St Georges, Bristol, and we nipped across to Suffolk to play with the Tallis Chamber Orchestra, a blast from the 1990s. Same people, few more grey hairs but nothing has really changed in close to 20 years. One of the reasons for returning to the UK was to see bits of Britain and mainland Europe – we were reminded how stunning Suffolk is.

Stuart’s professional reason for returning to the UK, beside doing Nicky’s ironing, was to work with the UK orchestras. It has been a busy time. After lots of auditions he has been on with:-

Opera North

Orchestra Victoria/Opera Australia - back to Melb from Mar-May to do the Opera Australia season

Northern Chamber Orchestra –3 operas with the Buxton Festival

Scottish Chamber Orchestra – the opening of the Edinburgh Festival with Roger Norrington was a stunning show. SCO are truly outstanding

Scottish Ensemble – amazing small scale chamber group, the Scottish version of ACO. The program was Vivaldi four seasons in the first half and the Philip Glass four seasons in the second. It was a stunning gig

Welsh National Opera after auditioning in June, he did the Sept-Dec season (Katya Kabanova, Barber of Seville and Don Giovanni) on trial for principal bass.

Other musical highlights in the UK included Forest Phil gigs in Walthamstow, Minehead Festival for 2^nd year and chamber music with Harmoniemusik at St Columb, Cornwall.

In our Xmas letter last year we expected to stay in our rental cottage in Leigh Woods as a house purchase in Long Ashton had just fallen thro, thanks to the joys of property purchase chains – one of the more insidious aspects of life back in Britain. Just after writing that Xmas letter a house came in the market in Clifton and it went thro very quickly. So most of 2011 has seen us settling into Clifton. Our tenure had an interesting start! The house settlement date was 10^th Dec, after a week of removals and unpacking we moved in on Sat 18^th Dec. On Xmas Day the news broke of the shocking murder of Jo Yates in Clifton – it would later become apparent that Jo was murdered on 17/12. Jo’s flat is on our road, 100m from us. Our first month in the house was dominated by press packs up the road and interviews from detectives, as we appeared on lots of CCTV cameras, and we “assisted with their enquiries”. Clifton really is a lovely suburb, green, leafy, lots of Georgian houses (like ours), which is one of they reasons why the Jo Yates tragedy was so shocking. But the quote of the year came from Moston boy Paul Mooney – “you have moved into a rough area!” Mancunians will appreciate the irony!

The main project has been the basement flat renovation. It’s fantastic – do come and stay!

Once that all settled down we finally got to meet some of the neighbours. Bob and Liz, two doors away have been dragging us (screaming and kicking of course) to the Royal Oak most Friday nights. Real beer in a proper English pub (one that is still in business) – a genuine British experience.

Another interesting night was 25^th Jan – we celebrated Burns Night, complete with haggis, whisky and over excited Scot reciting poetry that was not too complimentary about the boys South of Hadrians Wall. But we realised that it is Australia Day at the same time – 26/1 in Oz. So it became a joint celebration for us – an excuse to drink Auzzie red wine followed by a scotch whisky....or two!

Another reason for returning to this little island was to see more of family, friends and visit bits of the UK and Europe. As both of us have been travelling lots we have had time to see a great deal of people dear to us – Nicko and Mo are our London “hotels”, Jon very conveniently placed for the Buxton Festival and Macclesfield gigs, Paul Mooney in Manchester, Peter Day in Leeds, Liz and Ian for our Devon and Cornwall forays, Nor for the gigs up North (including Katherine Jenkins in Lytham – phaooorrrrrr), Mike and Glynis for the Glasgow work, John and Ann in Edinburgh.....we hope our hosts don’t feel completely dumped upon – it really is wonderful to see you all as well!!!

At Easter Stuart nipped over to Hamilton to see John, Terri and his nephews, William and Joe – one of the highlights of the year.

The Kilpatricks held a family gathering in Abergavenny in June to celebrate Liz’s 70^th. Great food, wine, cottages and company. The next trip was to Switzerland in September, for Matthew and Thomas’s wedding. Zurich and the lakes were truly glorious. And in October we went to Rome, via Glasgow! Yes, it’s not exactly on the way but Stuart persuaded Nicky it was, and there just happened to be a gig up there at the end of the week, fancy that?! In November we nipped over to Rome – amazingly this was Nickys first trip to Italy. It will not be her last. And at time of writing we are planning a week in La Rochelle, Western France the week before Xmas.

We had lots of Auzzie visitors including Geoff Lee and Jordi, Pete and Kathy, Sheena and Paul, Mimi and Johnny Price.

Xmas 2010 was with Jon, V and Ewan in snow covered Buxton - this year it will be in London with Mo and Steve, followed by New Year back in Bristol.

We wish you a peaceful and jolly Xmas and here’s to a healthy, safe and prosperous 2012.

Nicky and Stuart

Roma Day 1 - 24 Oct 2011

One of our goals in returning to the UK was to "do" Europe - so here we are in Roma, on Nickys first trip to Italy.

We are staying in a swanky hotel in Via Veneto, of the film La Dolce Vita fame. And being the huge film buffs that we are, we have never heard of it!! After our buffet breakfast, we walked miles on the first day, climbing  four of the seven hills of Roma -  Quirinal, Capitoline, Palatine, Esquiline.

The first hill was Quirinal, where we visited the Piazza del Quirinal and the Presidential Palace, home to Berlosconi, and lots of under aged hookers no doubt.

From the first hill, we moved onto the our first Fountain – the Trevi.

Next we threaded our way thro lots of back streets and ended up in Piazza Venezia, which has two things of note, the first being the Victor Emmanuel monument, loathed by many Romans, as an expensive folly which sticks out like a bacon sarnie at a barmitzvah. Next to it is the Palazzo Venezia, where Mussolini would speak to the masses from a balcony window.

It was then time for hill no 2 – the Capitoline. Even the steps are of note in Roma – the Aracoeli Staircase was built in 1347 to celebrate the end of the plague (there is logic there, somewhere). At the top is the Piazza del Campidoglio, designed by Michaelangelo, and surrounded on three sides by the Museo Capitoline, full of truckloads of mega important artwork, that we didnt have time to go and see.

The Capitoline offers great views of the West side of the Forum, our next port of call. Forum is the site of many of the major ancient ruins from the centre of Empirial Rome. Many of the sites have become household names around the world - Rostra (speaking platform), Julia Caesar Palace (the real one, not that glitzy jobbie in Las Vegas), Via Sacra, the temple of the Vestal Virgins (more of them in the video below!!) and the Colliseum. They are all within the same region, a short walk down Via Sacra joins the dots. Nero committed suidice here, Caesar was murdered by his fellow senators, “Et Tu Brutus”. The site is full of archaeological excavations – most of the ruins are 5m or so below road level, who knows what they will find beneath the current stuff.

3

If you check out the first clip of the video above you will see the forum in the foreground and the Colliseum on the horizon after the masterful camera panning! The last clip shows Nicky walking down Via Sacre, or the Sacred Way, that joined the Colliseum to the Capitole and was a spine running thro the Forum.

The third hill of the trip was Palatine, just to the South of the Forum. This area has seriously old ruins believed to be where Romulus and Remus were brought up, suckling on a she wolf. Yeah, right...

We could probably fill this blog entry on the Colliseum alone. It is quite remarkable in terms of history, culture, adult entertainment and architecture. Stadium design has not really changed much since it was commissioned by Vespasian in AD72. Free gladiator duals were staged, sometimes including live animals. The prisoners and beasts were stored in the understage rooms, a bit like a modern day opera orchestra. The stage was covered in sand, which would be raked over between bouts, to hide the blood. Injured combatants would look up to the Emporer in the posh seats to seek leniency, which would be granted by a thumbs up, or not in many cases.

Comm5Colliseum

After a hard earned lunch, we wandered back to our hotel, via a few more spots of interest, including our fourth hill of the day – Esquiline. On top of this hill is Saint Maria Maggiore – our first gratuitously massive and ornate churches of the trip. If St Peters didnt exist this would be the top Catholic Church in the world, but as were to find out the following day, it is dwarved in comparison. It is still a commanding building which is awe inspiring.

Australian invasion of Clifton

September saw the invasion of the Auzzies. We had Pete and Kathy to stay first, and our first guests walked across the doorstep with a bottle of Wolf Blass Grey Label, and excellent start. Oh, and it was lovely to see them both also!!! Thier was a short stay, just a couple of nights, before shooting off to Bath and London.

 

Next was the Geoff, Lee and Jordi from Riddles Creek. They christened out basement flat and had a great time seeing the local sights (Exmoor, Stonehenge, Bath) and fossicking. Jordi will no doubt have a metal detector one day and will keep him mum and dad in the lifestyle to which them have come to love, by finding things. Excellent effort with the blackberries and raspberries. And he picked up at least 10p!! We had a great day out on Exmoor, feeding the ducks, eating fish and chips by the river Exe and fossicking!!

Then Sheena arrived, and a little later Paul too. Sheena was meant to be having time out but spent many hours with Nicky at the 3rd floor desk, working out researchy stuff. Brilliant.

 

And last, but by no means least were John and Mimi. If Sheena cants stop working, then Johnny is in the boat. Mr-Fix-It couldnt deal with stuff going wrong, all of which Stuart was very happy to forget all about. Thanks for the dining room light, dishwasher door and all the other "little jobs".

The Clifton Sausage got a bit of business out of us - we are trying to rename it the Clifton Snag in honour of the Auzzies!!

 

Thank you Auzzies - we loved seeing you all and we had a great time. Come back soon!!

Basement Flat - Sept 2011

The basement flat it just about finished - check out:-

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/england/e3697.htm

 

Readers of this blog are of course entitled to video access, that the great unwashed cannot see via Owners Direct. You lucky people!

Mo was the first to test out this exclusive pad, but the Auzzie are catching up. Geoff, Leeanne and Jordi Barrett are in there right now and Sheena and Paul will be checking it out next week.