This is what I like!

Thanks for sending this pic, Frank, and all the other delightful animal shots.  I've forwarded that mail to just about everybody on my list and we all agree, they are some of the best animal photos we've ever seen.  If only the whole world could be friendly like this.

This frightens me

This is Incheon airport in Seoul, South Korea, which has been named the best airport in the world seven years in a row!  In just a few days, I'll be there!  Looks like something from outer space, doesn't it?  Shudder, shudder - give me green fields and some trees any day.


Temperatures in the northern hemisphere are warming up quickly, so I'll need to repack, but that's OK. I started a week or so ago to put a few things into my bag, realising as I did so I would probably change some of them as departure date draws nearer.

Mother's Day tomorrow

Yesterday I met up with a very old friend for the first time since Philip's wedding!  She chose the venue, a nursery/restaurant/gift shop called Eden Gardens and it reminded me so much of a similar nursery I went to somewhere between your place, Frank, and meeting you, Winifred!  Absolutely stunning!


We had a delicious meal and glass of wine and chatted about our families.  She is off to UK and Greece shortly - oh my goodness me, anther person going to the top of the world!


Almost every time I venture out I run into somebody I know, which seems remarkable for a city the size of Sydney.  It happened again at the nursery - I saw a woman I remembered from somewhere and boldly sat down at her table trying to work out a connection and I got it on the second attempt!  We'd both been at the wonderful New Year's Eve party beside the harbour, given by a mutual friend.  Of course, I'd forgotten her name, and have forgotten it again already!

Fox in Finland

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the price of tea in China, except to illustrate the point that lately people from all over the world have been connecting with me on the internet, whether by email, Facebook or Linkedin.  Just amazing!  First, the children of my French friends inviting me to France, then a long-lost young friend from Qatar announcing he's now married and has two children, another from Switzerland, and most recently a French penpal from school days! I'll be catching up with her and her husband on my trip, as they're not far from where I'll be staying.

Scott, I think this is a beautiful picture!  It must be wonderful living where you do!  Please email and let me know how Christabel is and what she's studying at uni.

Such a homebody!

You're right, Frank, flying from Australia to the UK and Europe is indeed 'a wee bit trying'.  If it wasn't such a special occasion I wouldn't think of it, but it's too late now - have booked!  While I'm over the moon at seeing everybody in France again, I'm very uptight at the thought of leaving home and the gorgeous Muffy!  Not to mention family, of course!


The other day I came across a brand new pair of summer slacks that I'd bought a while back and forgotten about, as they needed taking up.  This morning while I was digging them and the sewing machine out, I made two more discoveries - a new pair of red shoes I'd completely forgotten I own, and the adaptor for my iPad when I get to France!!!  Sometimes a poor memory is worth having for the surprises it brings!

French countryside

Here's a lovely pic I found on the internet of the very house I'll be staying in!  My friends live in the white single-storey house, and in the background is the big house where they lived when I was there in 1972, and which is now lived in by one of the children and her family.

I'm practising my French and will not allow myself to speak one word of English once I get there!

Autumn

Have calmed down after the initial excitement of being invited to France and am now looking at flights, etc, getting close to booking.  Just yesterday a friend sent me the itinerary of her trip to US and France, celebrating her husband's retirement, and they are leaving in two days; and another lot of friends left yesterday for three months in France!  Golly.  There'll be nobody left in Australia at this rate!

My trip will be short - two to three weeks - as this will kind of lesson the anxiety I always feel when I'm away from home.  I'll simply be staying with my friends in the countryside, not doing lots of sight-seeing.  

Little did I think when I sent you all those lovely pics of Paris that I'd be there again soon!  But, to be honest, I prefer looking at pics on the computer to the hassle of travelling.  Other people seem to think travelling is wonderful but I dread it.

Blast from the past!

I still can't quite get my head round it, but on Wednesday I got an email with the subject:  

'an invitation to come to France', from the daughter of some wonderful friends about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary!!!

How could I refuse?  As much as I hate flying, I love these people even more, so will be joining all the rest of you at the top of the world very soon!!!!!!!

The last time my friends and I were together was when this passport photo was taken, 39 years ago.  I am sooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!

Fagan Park

There's a park just down the road where Philip takes the family as often as possible.  It was given to the council by the family that used to live in the lovely old house, which is now a museum. It's huge, and has sections of gardens and buildings from all round the world, as well as having a kids' playground, picnic areas, etc.  


While they all went on Sunday, I stayed home, muddling along with my piano and Japanese.  Now, I tell you, Japanese has to be the HARDEST language in the entire world. I just printed 20 pages on verbs I found on Wikipedia.  (When I studied at TAFE a long time ago, we did a whole year without as much as learning a single verb.  There are no English equivalents like French, Spanish, German, etc.  Oooooooohhhhhhhhh, it's nearly impossible!)


I definitely think we should change the expression, 'It's all Greek to me' to 'It's all Japanese to me.'  Of course, I could say the same thing about piano chords!  


And, into the bargain, I'm trying to read Sartre's Being and Nothingness (635 pp), A C Grayling's The Good Book - A Secular Bible (597 pp) and Matthew White's Atrocitology (668 pp).  Not to mention I'm still going with Aylmer Maude's The Life of Tolstoy (928 pp), Steve Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature - Why Violence has Declined (802 pp) and your thin little volume, Olga, Elif Batuman's The Possessed, (a mere 296 pp).  I've included the index in the page count, so they're all really a bit shorter!

On the way to the bus stop...

Yesterday Emma and I walked to the bus stop - not two minutes away - to meet Daddy after work.  I took the camera to photograph the tibouchina on the footpath, and snapped the rest as a bonus!  We may not have the beautiful buildings of Paris, but nature everywhere is wonderful.