Nos 40 ans. Parce que c'était pour ses 40 ans mais çà a été un beau cadeau pour moi.

 First of all I broke my elbow in January 2019. What a shame  you could say especially when you know that I was responsible for falls prevention in my workplace. It actually was great ( ok apart from the pain , the surgery and the rehab afterwards...) just because I was able to be off work thus able to enjoy more time with her. 

Caco, Merci d'être venue avec tes garçons. Nous rejoindre ne NZ c'est pas forcément facile... 

Et voilà vive nos 40 ans !!!

Japanese Markets

While visiting Japan, you can not only visit shrines, Temples and gardens. You have to visit market and early in the morning if you are like us. Why would you visit a market in the middle of the day with all the otehr people. Much better to do it in the morning and have breakfast here. Except Breakfast is far from having bread and butter but more likely fish and fish again. After few days where I really enoyjed my fish breakfast I must say that I was craving more european breakfast.... Our brains are definetely programmed. Anyway Ben even tru the fugu sashimi : you that particular fish which could be deadly poisonous if not well prepared. Well it was obvisouly fine as Ben seems to be very much alive more that a year after ingesting it :-)

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Japan 2nd Honey moon -2

Realising that cross country skiing in Hakuba is not that convenient : no public transport to go to the tracks, we left Hakub for Matsumoto, not quite the usual touristic trip but we thought that it could be interesting to travel on regional train and discover an unexpected town. That was a good idea. We found of of the last wodden Castle in Japan and it was free to visit. We also had the chance to have two touristic guides with us both, volunteers, one speaking french one english. 

Christmas 2018 ouaip très en retard. But who cares.

Alors voilà , il semble que j'ai retrouvé le chemin de mon blog. It's been a while. Not very consistent but who cares ? I wwrite this blog for me mmostly and for the kids. To create our own memories. To put words on events.
I'm back in France but not quite sure I won't miss my adopted country dearly.
Maybe I'll keep writing in english. Maybe not.
Anyway, I just wanted to remember our last Christmas downunder. We had my parents over. And I wanted ot do something special. Nothing fancy, just different.
Usually Ben is working so we don't do much. But that year, we had him with us, so I decided to discover Dunedin.
We spent most of the week end on the Otag Peninsula , spending some time observing the albatros nesting. Strange facts, I learned there that for their first trip over the world the albatros don't land fro a year until they are back in their native area. I find that concept very difficutl to grasp.
We could have seen teh little blue penguin but decided against as it was late at night. We preferred enjoying short walks to go to remote beaches and observing sea lions swimming or sleeping. 

sea lion in harrington peninsula

majestic albatros

they look so small from where we stood

Larnach Castle

 Larnach Castle is the only Castle in New Zealand. It was built in 1870. And renovated since then. We wandered around in the garden and visited the inside. We could even play the piano in the music room. Now everyone can learn more on google. But what I want to remember is a little ram that happen there. I hope the lady who got injured is safe though.
We couldn't go in the music first because of a lady who missed a step and injured herself. The guides called the ambulance and they were waiting for it to arrive. on of them explained to us what happened in those words : " I'm really sorryfor the inconvenience but you cant' just right now go to the music room, we are waiting for the ambulance to get rid of her "... Well I couldn' help but gently laugh and I asked the guide : " in which way do you think they will get rid of her , do you think ? ". The poor guide felt so embarassed when he realised the meaning of his explanations. I felt really sorry for the lady but the guide's comments was amusing for my french brain.
The otehr real funny fact with Larnach castle is as a freanch when you listent to that name your first thought is " oh do they mean a scam castle ??" Larnach can be understood as "l'arnaque" in French which means scam :-)

blondy girl

sea daughter and dad

is taht a log ? not quite ...

the steepest street in the whole entire world :-)

Baldwin street.

oh hisse ma saucisse

mum and daughter in front of the train station

Dunedin cathedrale

Last but not least, we were there during Christmas so e told the kids that Santa not knowing that we were gone would bring thier Chrismas presents at home and we would find them when we would be back.
Gaïa is now old enough to have some doubts. But she was really adamant with Santa being real saying " we left home and there was no present and when we came back the presents were there. Surely it's santa who brought them that year."