Weymouth

On the last night I cooked at the caravan and we had a great meal and glass of wine.

Mom was more interested in the wine.

I had to leave a day earlier than mom and dad (plus they were headed off on the next stage of their holiday after) so we went into Weymouth for the morning. It is classic seaside village (cute but a little rundown) but there really wasn't much there during the winter. I did like the sandcastle dismay though.

Sand castles. 

We took a walk along the pier before finding somewhere for food. The sky was pretty cool though it took me forever to get mom and dad to stop playing around and take a photo.

They keep playing around 

Finally got them to stay still

Dramatic sky.

Out and about in Cairns

Saturday I took day to chill out and didn't book anything. I was intending on sitting my the pool in the sun but the weather was cloudy and cool. Not sunbathing weather. So I went into town for the day. I took Saturday off because I wanted to go to Cairns markets where all of the goods are locally produced. Unfortunately this week is Iron Man in Cairns so there was a fitness and lifestyle expo on instead. :-( But there were lots of very fit guys walking around so at least the view was good.

The Esplanade

The Esplanade runs the length of Cairns along the sea front and very pretty (though there isn't much sea there). There are also lots of free exercise stations (they are super fit here), BBQ areas, and play grounds along it. Because the beaches are pretty rubbish in Cairns, they built the Lagoon on the sea front for swimming.

Lagoon

Because of the weather I decided against going swimming and went to the Cairns Wildlife Dome which is above the Casino. If you have nothing to do and have small kids, it's fine but there really isn't a lot there. There is a rope bridge course but it's pretty expensive and small. But for little kids there are lots of birds flying around and they have regular tours and shows.

Red-tailed black cockatoo

Rat kangaroo

Goliath, a 4m salty

The small bird enclosure was fun

Blue tongued lizard, refusing to show his tongue!

I did however get my photo taken with a koala.

Cuddling a koala

His name was Micro, and he was so soft, cuddly and smells of eucalyptus. But his claws were huge - I wouldn't want to annoy him.

After the dome I went shopping for gifts (I found myself a great necklace and some presents for home) and another bottle of wine (a nice reserve chardonnay) as I am nearly through my semillion. I stopped a sushi place for lunch I had read some great views about, and had a large lunch (I made a mess of the first flying fish roe sushi before I took the photo, as you can see.)

Sushi lunch

I am going to spend the rest of the doing laundry (not very exciting but needs to be done), skyping home, working, and relaxing as I have to be up super early tomorrow morning, though it won't be by the pool.

:-(

My birthday

Mom and Dad left on Tuesday evening, so we spent the day in Town wondering around and shopping in the Markets.
The weather also warmed up a little so we sat by the sea for a bit as Dad went to take some photos.

After lunch we decided to go back to the sea and sat on the promenade, people watching. There was some sort of traffic problem. A bike pulled a car over, they exchanged words, and the bike drove off. However, the car stayed put. In the middle of the road. The guy got out, had a few words with a passer-by and then walked off. Leaving his car in the middle of the road, blocking all the traffic heading east in the Promenade. Within 10 minutes, a police van and 2 police cars arrived and 4 police men ran off into the old Town to hunt for the guy. I have no idea if they found him.

We were also sitting people watching, when a guy on his push-bike cycled passed with his dog. This would not be so unusual, if the dog had not been sitting on his shoulders as he cycled passed! I really wish I had got a photo of it but he was too quick.

Mom and Dad got the bus to the Airport at about 5, so I headed home with my birthday cake.

My birthday cake/Pastry

I had a nice night in watching films, drinking the wine from the vineyard and eating my little cake. I was exhausted after 5 days walking practically non-stop so had a very welcome and needed early night. Poor Mom and Dad didn't get home until 1am in the morning.

Anyway, I had some lovely presents including a great pair of socks from Mom and Dad. You know you are getting old when you are happy about socks. But they are fleece lined and so soft. As I didn't really pack for weather this cold, they are very welcome. I also got a Hottie. (Now not people can say they got a Hottie for their birthday.) Of course I should explain that it is a microwavable hot water bottle, but still...

I had a good birthday on the French Riveria. Thanks for all the birthday messages and cards and presents. (I haven't opened them all as Mom and Dad could only bring some of them. I will get the rest in a month when I go home.)

xxx

Old Town and vineyards

On Saturday, we went into the old town and had a look around. Then we walked along the Promenade des Anglais, which runs along the sea front for miles. We walked down to the Hotel Negresco, which is a really posh hotel on the sea front. We intended to go in for a hot drink (as we were once again freezing). However, it was a lot posher than I had expected and we were way under-dressed. So we gave up on that idea and wondered around the back streets for a while.

Then we meet up with Gerry and his girl friend Françoise, who was visiting for the weekend. We had lunch at a creperie (something I intend to do more of as it is really nice food).
Then Gerry drove us up into the hills to the Bellet wine region. This region is still pretty much in the Nice city limits and contains numerous little vineyards. We got there quite late in the day so only managed to see a few.
We were lucky to see the first one. The man who owns it was just leaving as we got there. He turned around and went back to open up for us. He is a retired Theatre Professor and now runs the vineyard. We tried 4 wines: 2 white (one was very dry), a rose (Mom's favourite) and a red (my favourite). Mom and Dad got a bottle of the rose and I got a bottle of the red. We had to wait for him to put the labels on one of the bottles. This place was pretty much his garage. But the wine was lovely and not something you can get in the supermarket.

Garage Vineyard shop.

The second place we tried was more commercial. We had a look around as it was very pretty though a little soulless after the first place. However the wines were really expensive and we had to pay for a wine tasting. We did not stay.

Expensive vineyard...

...but has a great view!

The last place we managed to get to was another little family run vineyard with a very sweet yet ugly dog. He looked a bit like a staff bull but with very big ears. Still he was very sweet and sat with me during the wine tasting. (I tried to get a picture of him but every time I tried, he moved.) We had a quick look at the vineyards, as the sun was setting. The sunset across the Alps was beautiful.

Sunset over the Alps

Really beautiful

Then we went inside and tried a few of the wines. We tried 2 reds (one was really dry and Mom couldn't drink it so I got her share), one white (very light) and a lovely rose. We didn't buy a wine from this place, but I had brought one of their wines from a wine shop in Nice a few weeks ago (though I have yet to drink it) so I didn't feel bad about not buying one. (And I paid more in the shop for it!) But we did buy some of their home-made fig jams. Fig jam is very popular here and very nice. By this point, I was happily merry.

The wine we brought

On the way back, we stopped for a hot drink in St Laurent, a port just West of Nice. It was very pretty and crazily expensive, so we did not stop for food. However, when we got back to the car, someone had double parked behind us. (Double parking seems to be a speciality of the French.) It took a little interesting manoeuvring and several curse words before we managed to squeeze out.