chateau floure

france this summer had a number of surprises in store and actually only pleasant ones. after a lot of fuss about where to go and for how long to stay we suffered a little bit from the fact that practically all places we wanted to use had some restrictions simply because we left it too late to book. so literally two days before we left london we still needed to fill in some accomodation gaps and one was a couple of days in carcassonne that our barn wasn't available any longer. what we found was the aptly named chateau floure just east of carcassonne in the smallest village - really only a few houses around the chateau, but nevertheless very pretty, and a grand place it was.

coming straight from a long day on horseback we arrived in a cloud of dust and horse smell only to be treated like kings. a beautiful pool and a lovely restaurant made me actually try to re-arrange all follow-on bookings only to stay here longer, but guess what...spaced out again.... 



france II - arquette-en-val et carcassonne

the most difficult decision this year was whether we would go all the way down to the south of france to see monsieur plo's horses again (and the beautiful corbiere mountains) which clocked up another 1000 kilometres on the car but felt right as it is just so pretty and we've never seen lovelier horses this side of the atlantic...

we stayed in a wonderfully converted barn in arquette-en-val which belonges to tony who could not be a better host and the whole place felt great, with lot's of space for just the three of us and our pet tortoise. carcassonne trips where on the agenda as much as a visit to the only major cathar castle we hadn't seen yet, montségur. extra bonus was our trip to lagrasse on horses right over the village bridge into the market place and the commotion it stirred, and simply the best ever lunch with dominique and michel in a farmhouse nearby.

uci downhill worldchampion 2010 masters 50+

you think we are rather in the fast lane in london with that typical juggle of work and commute, child and husband, horses and cats, and all the hussle that comes from it and to me fast is probably doing 120 mph on the motorway but most certainly there are people doing speedier things than us. so boy was i impressed when i saw my dear old friend stephan in this clip. personally i'd rather try it on a horse but then i wouldn't try it in the first place. we are impressed!!!

watch the whole clip here

summer I - france

 

we started in reims this summer and the beautiful sculptures on the cathedral would later cross our path again when we learned in naumburg that the same sculpturer or at least his workshop worked in both places. 

in beaune deac tried in vain to find the marey museum but to his dismay it had been closed and the contents shipped to paris.

more success in lyon with the lumiere museum and a wonderful street market just around the corner took care of breakfast and lunch. what an impressive villa! lyon itself was a bit of a revelation as we learned about the importance of the second-largest city in france as well as it's rather grand splendour. fab shopping in the old part of town with all chic french labels neatly lined up in gorgeous shops. so we stocked up on groceries and not on shoes (shame!) before heading south to carcassonne.

getting ready

the cats already know the tale telling signs: when annie appears in the summer it usually means the funny three people that normally live in the house and feed them disappear and they can look forward to endless treats and cuddles as annies still believes they might be hungry even if they're on the third can of tuna - one little miow will do the trick. 

we on the other hand are ever so happy to leave it all to her as we are sad that we cannot spend more time together. but this year's cat sitting came with the strict obligation that we visit annie in göteborg in the next couple of months. let's just hope our employers are equally impressed by that promise...

atp open studios

we have been rather unadventurous this year i have to admit and in almost all shows and places we have gone for the things we knew, tried and trusted. so to no surprise we spent almost our entire time in the recent atp open studios in nicola rae's workshop and admired her new work of visualized sonic frequencies. still hoping to comission our very own one day we opted for a slightly more affordable piece this year, or two as it turned out, blocks similar to this, and happily so.

 

but there is inevitable always one find and this year it was the work of paul malone who had been to our house some years ago to help nicola install her '10 british greys' which is still my alltime favourite. paul's work was an interesting discovery and it helps that he is now nicola's husband...so - guess who wants the train now! 

kent county show

(no commentary yet as rike has to write this entry - sorry)