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"The choir assembles. Waiting for the messiah @ the Royal Albert Hall"

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Paris

Les Invalides from the garden at the Musee Rodin

We caught the Eurostar to Paris a few weekends ago.  It was Dave's first Eurostar adventure, I think he was impressed, and the thing is I think the Eurostar is actually the tattiest of all the fast trains in France, I blame the private interests involved in Britain.  It was a little strange to be back there after so long.  I think I did a lot more walking than when I lived there, I had an annual pass last time I was there, which covered all zones, so I basically never walked anywhere.  This time we didn't even buy a 10-ticket pass.  But then Paris is so completely tiny.  We were staying in the 10th arrondissement, up North near the Gare du Nord and we walked multiple times from there to the Louvre.  It turned out that the weekend we visited a lot of the museums and art galleries were free on the Sunday.  We were contemplating the Louvre, but after seeing the line stretching from the entrance, through the forecourt, out through the next courtyard we thought we'd try to find a less popular free gallery.  We ended up at the Musee Rodin, which I think is one of my

A man just wanting to work as a servant

favourite art galleries, as you have the wonderful gardens and then when you get a bit cold there is another whole exhibition inside the old house, I think it's probably more of a chateau.  And being so close to Les Invalides seems to add something to the photos too. 

I like the statue in the photo to the left, also inside the Musee Rodin, this man apparently turned up at Rodin's house looking for a position as a servant.  Rodin took one look at him and demanded he take off all his clothes and starting sculpting him straight away.  Must have been a bit of a shock to the man who only wanted to be a servant.  There was another statue in this same room which caused a bit of controversy for Rodin.  Because he was so good at capturing the musculature he was accused of taking casts of his models, rather than just sculpting them.  I think from that point on he no longer sculpted life size as he didn't want to be falsely accused again. 

Dante and the gates of hell

The classic is of course the Thinker.  I didn't appreciate that he actually made the Thinker much smaller originally, that it was just part of a much larger door sculpture, and that he is meant to be Dante looking down on the inferno.  It seemed though that Rodin liked what he had done on the door so much that he had to make an entirely separate version.

Whilst we were in Paris I noticed that there was a photography exhibition by Diane Arbus on at the photography museum, I love how Paris has a museum for everything.  Diane Arbus focused a lot on people on the fringes of society, the outsiders, which made for some really freaky photos.  I didn't realise that she killed herself when she was quite young.  Her photos certainly stick with you.  Unfortunately photos of the photos aren't allowed.

Paris is made for sepia tones, taken on the walking tour

We also went on a walking tour whilst we were there, though it was more of a history lesson then a big walk.  This one started off at the Palais-Royal and ended up at the Place de la Concorde, so not a massive distance covered.  But there was a lot of history covered, it was focusing on the Revolution period, which is a period which I am ashamed to admit I don't know heaps about.  I mean I guess I know the basics, but the way the tour guide was talking about it, that it was like a century of history was compressed into a decade, really made me keen to find a good book on this period.  I reckon there's got to be a few around, I mean the French Revolution is a pretty popular subject.  But the history he did cover was interesting, it was probably more little facts and tidbits about the buildings around us than an over-arching lesson on the revolution.
 

In the gardens of the Palais-Royal

Relaxing in the chairs in the Tuilleries

The rest of the weekend was spent wandering the streets, though it was much colder than London seemed to be. Whilst ducking into boulangeries for croissants and coffees. I'd forgotten how nice French coffee is, after a couple of months of the weak swill they generally serve here. It has a very particular flavour, I'm not sure whether it's the beans they use or their roasting or what, but I haven't tasted that anywhere else. I was also impressed that I could still order in French, it makes it easier when you are in a crowded shop and the attendant just wants to be done with you as soon as possible to sell the next person their morning baguette. But definitely inspired me to take up French again, I think it's going to be a new Year's resolution for me.

Can't escape those autumn colours

Classic French garden furniture

Not quite over autumn yet

Strolling along the Seine

Place Vendome with the Ritz behind it

In the photo to the left is Napoleon's massive column in Place Vendome

Classic spikes

Ile de la Cite, so pretty!

Even their gravel barges look good

Strange lock exhibit

Dave in the Musee Rodin gardens

The rose and the thinker

Rodin's old house

The classic Paris shot, in Montmarte

Four meat meal (taken with Instagram)

We have pork sausages, pork kidneys, pork fillet and bacon. It's a full on pork meal

Romantics Anonymous

Dave and I went to see this French film last night. It was very sweet and light with some funny moments in it, very French and quite like Amelie, that seems to be it's own genre nowadays.

I'm loving our local cinema at the moment. You get to sit in sofa's and they have waiter service, so you can have a beer whilst watching the movie. It works out well, I get to see Twilight and Dave gets to drink a couple of beers, we're both happy :)

Autumn Colours: Hampstead Edition

So I'm sure I'll grow tired of these wonderful colours around me soon. In fact I don't think I'll have a choice, the leaves are definitely starting to disappear. A brilliant yellow vine that I've been admiring as I pass it on my way to work lost all it's leaves the other day.  I think I'll have to move on to Christmas lights to get my colour fix. 

One of the non-swimming ponds in the Heath

Hampstead had it's Christmas fair last weekend and the lights here were switched on then.  They normally get some celebrity to do the actual switch on, so I was kind of hoping for Ricky Gervais, since he lives around here, but no such luck, some comedian I'd never heard of who's about to go on tour got the honours.  I have to say though having been to a few English Christmas markets recently, they really don't have anything on the German markets.  The German ones are very much all about Christmas, they sell Christmas decorations, mulled wine, Christmas goodies, there's usually ice-skating rinks and a random Santa Claus wandering round, oh and the glorious, glorious food!  In England it's more just a normal market that happens to be on at Christmas time.  At the Hampstead market they even had sideshow attractions, because nothing says Christmas more than getting ripped off by carnival folk.

Even the water was orange!

Now while England may not do a good Christmas market I'm still hopeful for their light displays.  I haven't gone out investigating these yet, so that's something I'm going to try and do over the next few days.  Hopefully they make up for the, quite frankly, disappointing Christmas markets.


All these pictures were taken up on Hampstead Heath, not at the market, and though it may seem as if they were taken at twilight it was only 3pm at the time, but then I suppose that is dusk at the moment here.

This photo seems washed out on the laptop as compared to the iMac, maybe I need to calibrate my screens?

Couldn't resist a bit of sepia

You've seen this one before :)

The leaves are nearly gone now

The last ones are still clinging on

View across from the Heath

To me this is a typical English park view, green grass, people, church in the background and the autumn leaves

Thank goodness for evergreens to keep some colour around

Rough Week: Part 3

You gross bed bugs, they actually do give off a really unpleasant odour, not almonds though

Wow, and so the saga comes to an end.  We've finally figured out what was causing all these problems, and turns out it's very mundane, just bed bugs.  I can't believe such a small insect could cause such wide-spread pain. 

We'd been sleeping on the sofa bed in our lounge room, ever since I went to see the dermatologist and she thought it could be bug bites.  After a week in the lounge with no ill effects we went back to the bedroom for one night, and the next morning I had about 30 bites on me and they were starting to blister again.  It seems that a bed bug only has to look at me and my skin reacts.  I guess this is a good thing though as it means it will be impossible for a bed bug infestation to grow unnoticed in my house and given the three-fold increase in bed bug numbers in London lately I suppose it was only a matter of time.  It's the new northern hemisphere pandemic.  The fumigator who came in to take a look said we had a very minor infestation, as at the previous place she'd been too she'd lifted the pillow and there were about 100 bugs under there.  It makes me shudder just thinking about it.

The sad thing though is that fumigators are kind of expensive, and whilst we can afford it (and I would actually spend an awful lot of money to not go through that again), some people can't.  You read some horror stories on the web about single mothers with two young kids, covered in bites, but they can't afford the fumigation.  It makes me think that perhaps this really is a public health issue and maybe the local councils should be paying for the eradication.  I mean I don't want to be living somewhere where my neighbours all have massive bedbug infestations because they can't afford to get rid of them, that's not going to end well for either my mental or skin health!

Anyway in three weeks time we should have gone through the 3 treatments recommended and be completely bed bug free..... so who wants to stay at our place :)

Seriously though, do not leave your luggage on the floor at hotels and when you get home after a trip wash all your clothes at above 60 degrees, and if you ever think you may have an infestation, invite me to stay the night and by about midnight it should already be clear.

Phone Posts

Woohoo, looks like I've figured out how to post to the blog from my phone.  This means I can now post all my Instagram photos here as well.  For those not in the know Instagram is a smart phone app which applies filters to your photos, majorly reducing the resolution and then posts them.  It's good for those moments when you're just out and about and want to let people know what you are up to.  It's part of the phonography which is taking off at the moment, in fact there is even an exhibition in London at the moment dedicated solely to photos taken with iPhones, some of them look really good. 

Instagram is a funny little program, I kind of like it as it's sort of an update on the go to those people following you, plus you can post directly to Facebook (but not blogger, boo hiss!).  It's also kind of cool to see what really good photographers can do with just their rubbish little iPhone and a couple of pre-made filters.  But then that of course leads to debate, as some people just use instagram as a means of uploading their beautifully crafted, photoshopped photos, which completely blow iPhone pictures out of the water.  People think that sort of behaviour goes against the spirit of the medium as it should be about embracing the iPhone's flaws, but then I think sometimes people are waay too competitive.  So anyway a few low-quality phonographs for you and hopefully I'll be able to keep these coming in the future.

Apologies to those who have seen these already, a bit of a lazy post really :)

Golden light on the Heath

Cannot get enough of these colours at Hampstead Heath

Leaves!!! at the Heath

The river through Oxford

Tower Bridge under a grey sky

View from the top at Hampstead Heath

My first Christmas wreath, yes that is live fir and holly branches

Belfast

Queens University, where's Harry Potter?

So I think my photos may be gone, or maybe I didn't take as many as I thought I did.  Perhaps by the end of the 10 days I had  run out of space on my memory card.

I was a bit nervous visiting Belfast, all I really knew about Northern Ireland were "the Troubles", nice name for what was basically a civil war, as well as various accounts of knee-capping.  This view wasn't helped by one of the tour guides in Dublin. Upon hearing we were going to Belfast next, he told us a story of when he visited.  He went there as a tour guide, though his job was just to drive people from Dublin and back.  The group had organised their own tour guides in Belfast.  He told us that one of the guides gave him his card and later on the the Dublin guide had googled this Belfast guide.  Turns out he was one of the political prisoners released as part of the Good Friday Accord, and he had been convicted of killing a couple of British soldiers as well as some passers-by who happened to be in the wrong place.  Full-on stuff!

Apparently most of the people who are tour guides with the black cab tours, the ones who take you on tours of the more political parts of town, are these released prisoners.  This was confirmed when we walked into the Belfast tourist office and asked about doing a tour.  The lady behind the desk was very quick to inform us that they had no

That is Elizabeth Bennett's dress from the only Pride and Prejudice adaptation worth mentioning

part in recommending any particular cab tour, that they were political tours, and that we could take a look at the pamphlets if we wanted.  As we were only after a walking tour of the city we were a little taken aback by the response.

No matter how many times the tour operators would tell you that times had changed, that things were looking up, these sorts of reactions made us think that Northern Ireland still has a ways to go.  There were a couple of things that put us off, and made us feel a little uneasy.  We did one of the bus tours, mainly so we could see the murals without having to take a scary black cabs tour.  As we're driving along, the guide points out what they call a "Peace Wall", nice name for a 5m high wall running along the backs of houses to protect them from any bombs.  That was probably one of the scariest things for me, seeing this city divided still, more than 10 years after the peace was meant to have started.

It's a really strange place, I would go just to experience it.  Along one of the unionist roads were hundreds of Union Jacks, banners and banners of them, more than are even in the Mall near Buckingham Palace.  It was strange to see somewhere so fervently proclaiming who they were, especially as Northern Ireland barely seems to get a mention in the English press.  The other really strange thing was that the unionist and republican areas in Belfast are right next door to each other, these people are neighbours.  The other noticeable thing is how poor that whole area is.  The whole Troubles seemed to start in 1968 when Catholics/nationalists organised a march to protest against the discrimination they were experiencing.  The police force reacted violently to this and it all seemed to spiral out of control from there.  It really seemed kind of sad, the discrimination these people were facing, I also suppose history was against both sides reaching a peaceful agreement at that time, having been a number of times when both Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other in the fight for Irish independence.

The burnt and abandoned Justice courts

Belfast is also home to the Europa hotel, which all the tour guides were quick to tell you used to hold a world record for the number of times it was bombed.  It's as if they are proud of it, which is a bit odd.  Another really weird incident happened just while we were walking around. It seemed that one of the roads had been closed off, as if a parade was about to start.  There was a policeman there keeping an eye on things so I asked him who was parading, he said "they're idiots"  I thought it was a bit weird, but turns out they were parading under the banner of the World War I division that unionists fought for, they just can't seem to let it go there. I guess I can see where this policeman's lack of patience comes from, I mean he's the person who's on the front line when the two groups try to kill each other.  I was actually a little scared, these unionists were all quite drunk and really seemed like they would be happy to pick a fight. So whilst it is interesting to experience this I would recommend spending most of your time in the Republic of Ireland, they just seemed more sorted.

The stories you hear about the Troubles are just crazy.  The photo to the left is of the abandoned Crumlin Road Courthouse, directly opposite it was the gaol, and they are connected with an underground tunnel.  During the Troubles judges in this courthouse handed out sentences which totalled something like a quarter of a million years.  It was abandoned in the 1990's, but recently it has been the subject of arson attacks, so nobody really knows what is going to be done with it.

We didn't end up spending a lot of time actually in the city.  Though we did go on a ghost tour, which was pretty weird, and being the UK they had to slip in the obligatory Jack the Ripper reference.  We also went to the museum there, I would recommend that, if only for their exhibit on the Troubles.  They must have been quite brave to actually have a section on it, because I imagine it still leads to some very strong feelings in the community.  To lighten the mood they also had an exhibit on clothes worn in movies and TV shows.  There was a big section on Downtown Abbey which seems to be the hit show here at the moment.  Even David Cameron mentioned it in a speech he gave at the Lord Mayor's inaugaration dinner.

Parliament House: Stormont, there was serious security getting in here

Rough Week : Update

The picture on the left gives you some idea as to what sort of drugs I've been on lately.  There's a few of them there.  We still haven't got to the bottom of it, but I think we're getting closer.  Ever since my last post on this subject I've been getting these weird blisters appearing all over the place.  At first I thought they might just be some lingering reaction to the antibiotics, apparently strange rashes are a side effect, and they did make me so sick I couldn't actually complete my journey into work in one go. 

It's been a while since I was off them though, and they were still appearing, and when one started to come up on my eyelid I thought enough was enough and it was back to my friendly medical centre and another hour long wait.  I've decided that GP's are basically help desks, in that they can't actually help you or diagnose your problem, but they are pretty good at referring you to the person who can.  Let's just say that I've certainly been getting my money's worth for my National Insurance contribution.

I have to say one more thing about my awesome medical centre, I turned up at 8:55am ready to start queuing for the duty doctor.  I was of course told that they can't start taking names until 9am, because that makes sense.  I turn around and there are already 5 people sitting, looking like they are also waiting for the doctor to open.  At 8:58 am one of the two sets of parents there got up to take their child to the bathroom, at 8:59 am one person got up and started queuing in front of the duty doctor's counter.  Which was, of course, everyone else's sign to get in line, and being in England we all tried to follow the order of who had arrived first, but then a whole crowd of people arrived and join the queue as well and all order was lost.  At 9am the duty doctor counter opened, at 9:01am the parent emerged from the bathroom to see a queue already 10 people long.  Lesson learned in that experience! 

I was chatting to some other people in the line as we were waiting, one of them was a guy who had been in to see the doctor yesterday and had been told to come back today, but unfortunately there were no appointments available.  So even though he literally lives next door to the clinic he can't go home after he's signed in, he has to wait around for anywhere in excess of 2 hours to be seen.  A word of advice for those seeking a duty doctors appointment here, arrive early, queue early and if you need to go to the bathroom, cross your legs instead!

My doctor's experience was quite pleasant this time, no nasty antibiotics, instead he took a look at my weird blisters, and unfortunately for him that's my only symptom, other than them I feel fine.  Even though they have their software now which you can just enter all the symptoms and see what pops up, with only one it's hard to narrow it down.  So he admitted defeat and said he'd get me in to see a dermatology specialist.  This is where I am again impressed with the hospital system here, I would think that to see a specialist for a non-life-threatening condition in Australia would take weeks, not that I've ever really been in that position so I'm only guessing.  I got to see one three days later, so local anesthetic and biopsies later hopefully we are on the way to working out what it is.  I'm going to attempt to fumigate the bedroom this weekend, as one possibility is bugs, have to say they gotta be some pretty nasty bugs to be causing what I've got!  But then bugs sound a lot better than immune disorder, which was another possibility.

Autumn colours

Is it winter already?

As well as seeing fireworks I was also really keen to see some autumn colours.  I was a bit worried that I might have left it too late and missed the leaves turning.  On my walk to the train station each morning, there are a few trees, but they all lost their leaves back in October when we were still having 30 degree days.  So I didn't really have any concept as to when normal trees start losing their leaves.  We planned a big walk, from the north side of Hyde park, through Green park, past Buckingham Palace and St James' park down to the river for the fireworks, with hopefully a pub stop for lunch and hopefully some colourful leaves.

Now there was a lot of "atmosphere", which means there was some serious moisture in the air. 

Guess not, still autumn here!

Whilst you don't really notice it in real life, the camera sure loves it, so there was a bit of lightrooming going on with some of these.  Apologies if they are over-saturated.

Dave admiring the leaves

As well as awesome colours the squirrels were going crazy too.  Everywhere we looked they were scampering all over the place.  They don't hibernate during winter, so in autumn they have to put on 10% of their body weight in fat.  There were some seriously plump looking squirrels out there, but still fast enough to beat the dogs.  In winter they have to eat nearly every day, but if the weather is particularly bad they may take a day off, which is why they need that extra 10%.  The ones we saw were only greys though, the reds having long since disappeared from London.  The greys carry squirrel pox, which they are immune too, but the reds aren't, sounds like the colonisation of America only in reverse, and with squirrels.

What a delicious peanut

There are still pockets of red squirrels remaining, in Scotland in particular.  In fact there is a little island in Poole harbour, on England's south coast, called Brownsea Island.  This is meant to have about 200 individuals living there.  We were planning a squirrel hunting trip there, but it turns out the island is closed (I

Leaves!!

didn't know islands could close) so we are going to have to wait until next February to see our first red squirrel.  I think though that they might be even more active then, as February is mating season, so definitely looking forward to that adventure!

We also learned that the squirrels love peanuts, just the raw ones still in their shells.  So I'm definitely carrying a few of them in my pockets from now on.  And the bonus is if we don't see any squirrels we can just eat them ourselves.

We also witnessed a mighty duel between a big crow and a squirrel.  The squirrel was digging through the ground, not sure what it was looking for, and the crow was following close behind to see what the squirrel dug up.  Every now and then though the crow got too close and the squirrel rounded on it.  I'd never seen a squirrel look so ferocious, the crow was definitely not taking that on!

The crow and squirrel eye each other off

The crow circles the squirrel

The squirrel attacks!! The crow is defeated.  Not how I would have thought this would play out

Man, there's cameras everywhere here, even in Hyde park!  Are they up in the trees or something and where are the wires?

Lovely, with a lot of atmosphere!

Princess Diana's memorial fountain, more of a circular stream really

Aren't you a nice looking swan

And your baby is looking pretty big now too

My favourite tree

More colours and birds

Upside down squirrel

After making it out of Hyde Park we came upon Wellington's arch, though you may see that it actually has a lady and four horses on top of it.  It used to be instead a massive statue of the Duke of Wellington, but I think that people thought it was too ostentatious.  When the arch was moved to alleviate traffic problems around here, the Duke was moved elsewhere.  You can climb to the top of this arch, which we did.  I love doing these things that tourists wouldn't bother doing.

Wellington's arch

They had walls dedicated to other famous arches around the world inside

The view from the top

More atmosphere in Green park

Buckingham Palace, more of a big house really, with a lot of traffic noise

Lovely colours in St James' park