2009 Xmas and New Year

Our little christmas tree - budless orchid with one decoration
Baby Ashton
Kerry, Ashton and Tony
Ashton and his new best friend
The christmas table
The big bird
Emma and Kerry
New years eve!!!!
Fellow pirates
Kim, Sam & Nat
Nat, Zosha, Kim & Sam
Lynn & Lara
David & Kim
Wayne, Simon and Hugh
Sam & Zosha


We spent christmas with a few other kiwis in Clapham. Lots of turkey, ham and roast potatoes all washed down with some champange. Wasn't quite a white xmas, but was pretty close. It's been soooooo cold!!!

New years we went to a friends house party in Borough where we all had to dress up as pirates. Quite a fun night. The hosts were Australians so we were given a million sausages on the barbie outside in the cold. Pity there wasn't any prawns :-) We were so close to the fireworks on the Thames, but we were too lazy to go outside and look. Instead we watched the count down on the TV inside. The best bit of the whole night was my free ride home on the tube. Good ol' TFL put on free transport ALL night long...

Happy New Year guys and we'll see you in NZ in a few weeks time xxx

Loire Valley, France

Simon wasn't too happy with what this did to his camera a few seconds later...
Chateau de Chenonceau
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Yes, that is a F R O Z E N river!
The vineyards that make the magic

We met with our friends Jacqui and Andrew for a few vinos in Paris before coming back to London.


Simon and I caught the Eurostar to Paris on Friday night and we were pretty lucky to be on the last train through for about 5 days. The train behind us was the one that got stuck in the chunnel. The trains just weren't made for the climate Europe was experiencing this December...

After arriving in Paris around 7pm, we hired a car and drove 200km south to a little village called Amboise. It did take a bit longer to drive down than normal because of the weather, but we got there in the end. It's a medieval town where Leonardo Da Vinci died. The main reason we went down here was to visit the much photographed Chateaus. We did manage to get out and see one, but the roads weren't very safe for driving so we came back to our little town and drank a few local wines and sat down for a lovely French dinner. Might have to come back here in the summer time and see a few more...

On the Sunday the Eurostar was still not running, but we were one of the very lucky few who managed to get on the Eurostar chartered flight back to London Stansted - the only airport open in London because of the snow.

I thought we were lucky to get to Paris, but turns out we were even luckier to get back to London.

Santa run around Battersea Park

Simon, Michelle, David, Will and Ian getting ready before hand
Eager....
The warm-up
Where's Wally?
2000 other santas were doing the run also
Look who is coming past the finish line!


Simon did a 6km fun run dressed up as Santa around Battersea Park on a fine English winters morning last weekend. I of course couldn't participate, otherwise who would be there to take the photos?

He did exceptionally well, coming in at first place for his level - 60years +! Our mate David, accidentally entered him into the wrong category. hehehe Actually, he still did pretty well... coming in with the first 200 out of the 2,000 contestants. Go santa!!!!

Geneva, Switzerland

Swiss-army knives in Swiss-land
Some of the best chocolate in the world... we came back here twice!

Check out the fountain in the background. Hugggggge!



Beautiful Autumn colours










We had one of the most scary flights in all of our time on Friday 13th!!!! A guy sitting next to me was probably the most nervous flyer I had ever seen, and that is saying something! So when we had a bit of a rough take-off he starting screaming and swearing in French. Trust me to be sitting right next to the guy!!! We did arrive safely in Geneva an hour or so later and we had a lovely short weekend away. Neither of us had been to Switzerland before, so it was a bit of an experience. We could imagine the city snowed under in the middle of winter. Everywhere is pretty geared up for the climate. The lovely Mont Blanc in the background and already had a bit of snow on it :-)