Two Front Teeth

It’s almost Christmas and the lights are turning on all over London. Some lights are, of course, fancier than others. This photo is of the lights on Regent Street (I think that’s one of the green ones on the monopoly board – stay tuned for Sidgirl’s personal tour of the monopoly board) which are high on the scale of fancy. Hmm, perhaps a trip to Mayfair to see just how fancy these things can get and, for a balanced view, a trip to Old Kent Road. On Brixton Road I think I may have uncovered a scandal – lit up and flashing outside our windows are, of all things, chillis. Erm, yep. Now forgive me if I’m not up on English or perhaps Afro-Brit Christmas tradition, but it’s my personal theory that Lambeth Council have obtained these street pole decorations for what I’m sure was a bargain price from dubious sources. Or cultural misunderstanding. “Chreesmaas decorations? Sure meesta, we got Chreesmaas decorations.” And when the package arrived from Mexico or Spain or Slough, what did the guy who opened the box say to his boss? “Er, yes Ma’am, the Christmas decorations we ordered have arrived but…”

Yet there is a nice sense of community in Brixton – I get a resident’s discount for using the facilities at the Brixton Recreation Centre and on Cold Harbour Lane there is an artists co-op in an old shop where you can look at different art from week to week, sign local petitions and even get your hair cut. Their latest addition which I’m super excited about is a piano. Middle C is broken and it’s terribly out of tune but did that stop me from tinkling the ivories? Hell no. Even better, they’re getting it fixed this week. And they’ve invited me to play whenever I like and asked if I would be interested in giving lessons to beginners. Well I’ve never been trained in piano myself but I’ll give it a good Aussie go. Yippee! As you can see, the barber has just set up behind me. Hmm, haircuts to live music – we could be on to something.






Of course the weather is a hot topic (hehe) in any small talk. All I can say is if I’m going to be this bloody cold, I want snow. Lots of it. A white Christmas. Snowball fights. Outdoor iceskating. Snow angels. Snow men and women. Catching snow on my tongue. No such luck in London yet but my gloved fingers are crossed and I’ve a handsome new green jacket to ease the pain. I don’t know that it will save me when I fall on my arse from icy footpaths (sorry, pavements). Already I think of 10 degrees as being a mild day. Oh God, help me.



And, as I prefer to present both sides of the story (see the commute post below), it is possible to find an empty staircase in some underground station and give the CCTV monitors something to giggle at.



Guy Fawkes night the other week was good fun too, if a little anarchic. We had visitors from Edinburgh, Tracy and Andy, for the weekend and a large weekend it was. On Saturday we went out to South Bank to see some fireworks. There were many sanctioned fireworks and bonfires and many more unsanctioned ones. For the two weeks either side of November 5 fireworks and firecrackers are de rigour. Now I’m a wimp at best when it comes to official displays – you should have seen my companions trying to get me to cut through a small park in South Bank with a couple of sets of people lighting their own… It was beautiful though – I would have posted a photo of Steven and I on the bank of the Thames that night but have ceded to his "oh no, you're not posting that, are you?" panic request.

I include here instead a gorgeous photo that Steven took of Brixton Road. Even if you are familiar with the street, you just don’t get to see it looking so magical. This photo is taken from just underneath the bridge that runs past our bedroom window.



So the street lights are still on when I get up for work at 7 and the light is gone by about 4.30. It’s time to rug up, be snug as, hire lots of DVDs and wait for the snow to transform the streets into a winter wonderland. Or so my romantic notions would have it.

In training...

I am a commuter. I commute; therefore I am. I belong to a family of commuters. I perambulate along the corridors, stairs and escalators of Brixton, Stockwell, London Bridge and Bermondsey. I am learning the hop skip and jump through the threat of closing doors. I am closer to my fellow commuter than I ever cared to be; I can see their pores, smell their deodorant, inspect the lint on their coats. I am mastering the art of the sliding eyes when caught looking. I can study the tube map on the wall for minutes on end and read the newspaper over the shoulder of my neighbour. I am subtle in my facial expression to indicate that it wasn’t me who opened my lunchbox. I can tighten my lips along with the best of them when the PA announces minor delays on the Northern Line. I can dodge the slow ones in the walkways, or walk close to their heels, depending on my mood. The world is my Oyster (card).

What a riot...

And I missed all the action but here's a second hand version. We went to a birthday party last weekend in the back room of an East End pub. The back room was really cool, mostly due to one of those seventies disco dance floors with the squares that light up. It was a combined 30th birthday with great entertainment - some live music, some DJs and VJs. Steven had lent his PA for the party and when it came time for home Steven decided not to leave it there overnight. So he went out to find a minicab to take us home. He was gone for ages. So I packed up the PA, scowling some as I did since I'd already moved the PA that day, bloody hell, and now I was doing it again at 2am.

Little did I know that all hell had broken loose in the front bar. Just as Steven got there some B-boys who had crashed the party earlier began tearing up, having a go at everyone in the front bar and breaking furniture. And by silent agreement the rest of the people in the front bar formed a wall, moving forward to force the boys outside. It worked but the boys weren't too happy and, grabbing some of those enormous heavy plastic white or orange road blocks from nearby, proceeded to throw them through the front windows of the pub.

Eventually some police showed up and people felt safe enough to leave. So yeah, leaving the PA in the middle of that war zone was not an option. And I missed it all.

Still...

This is a phone photo so forgive the quality but it's the stage at the Barbican Centre with the Dirty Three on it. Oh, and a completely unannounced dude at the piano: Nick Cave. Great gig, quietly.

London, I think, is a reluctant city. As reflected in shows like East Enders, there are those who hardly venture from their small patch and think it a great deal to go across town. It’s like a whole lot of little villages inside a ring road and it’s the foreigners or London adoptees who travel most. It’s not a criticism at all; merely an observation of some weeks and through talking to others.

When I visited the dentist last week she picked up my file and said “ooh, you’ve come a long way!” and I thought she was referring to Australia but it was that I took two trains and a bus, which only took an hour, to get there. Which I had found quite exciting really.

The best selling book in London must be the A-Z, a street directory. You see people clutching them everywhere, a life jacket in the sea of London. They have a tube map on the back cover. And as there are often the same names for streets in near neighbourhoods that aren’t obviously connected, it’s important to get the postcode for any destination as they cover a quite small area. And make some kind of geographical sense: SW9 is in the south west, W12 in the west, N7 in the north etc. But it’s almost a curse having been brought up on a grid – nothing is on a grid here, streets meander crazily and even if you think you’re heading in the right direction, you can find yourself miles away in no time. No wonder no one seems to know where anything is.

I thought it would last longer but as police sirens are at least a thrice daily occurrence on Brixton Road, I no longer have The Bill theme running through my head every time one goes past. I have also finally stopped dreaming that I was back in Adelaide, had used my plane ticket and couldn’t get back to meet someone or play netball. Anxiety much?

There has been a little rain but not as much as I thought there would be. The days are getting noticeably shorter and the wind chill is certainly picking up. It’s definitely not as cold as Scotland though when Steven and I drove up there the other week. More excitement and fear in the small things: I had to go the hire place to pick up the car on a Friday afternoon and find a park somewhere closer to the flat. Again the curse of the grid!

We left London around 6am on Saturday morning, a few hours later than we had planned. It was about a 7 hour drive to Irvine on the west coast of Scotland, around a half hour drive south west from Glasgow. While the purpose of the trip was to see Steven’s grandmother who was in hospital, we did manage to get in a little tour of the area before heading back to London on Sunday afternoon. We went to Paisley where Steven was born and to Saltcoats where he spent much of the rest of his childhood before coming to Australia. Here is a pic of us in Saltcoats: we are on a turret (c1650) at the far end of a dock in the Saltcoats bay – the line behind us is the houses facing the bay. And as you can see it was very windy and bloody freezing! We lasted up there about as long as it took to take the photo.



The other week we participated in the anti-war demonstration which organisers said drew 100,000 people and police said drew 10,000 (ain’t it always the way) and while the chants don’t vary much (1-2-3-4 we don’t want your bloody war 5-6-7-8 stop the killing stop the hate) I did find this one amusing: George Bush, we know you, Daddy was a killer too. Some pics:







I’m reading about the longest case in UK history: McDonald’s Corporation (First Plaintiff) and McDonald’s Restaurants Limited (Second Plaintiff) v Helen Marie Steel (First Defendant) and David Morris (Second Defendant). I’m reading about it in a book called ‘McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial’ by John Vidal. I do vaguely remember news items about this case which was decided in 1997 after running for two and half years. Essentially McDonald decided to sue two activists for libel over a pamphlet laying out the evils of their food, business practises and the environmental and cultural affects thereof. These guys weren’t even the authors of the pamphlet but had participated in handing it out. It’s a fascinating read, an obvious David and Goliath story (QCs v litigants in person, unlimited resources v a postman and a gardener) and I don’t yet know how it ends but I don’t think anyone actually wins overall. There’s a link to a website (see links on sidebar) that contains the story (spawned at the time of the trial) as well as heaps of other info on current campaigns and on other industries etc. I think non-vegans/vegetarians are allowed…
I’m beginning to think of volunteering at The Guardian newspaper as a proof-reader. Their reputation for typos and mis-edits is such that a great magazine here called Private Eye (think Media Watch in a weekly magazine) refers to them as The Grauniad (geddit? It took me a while I admit!). And irony, in the non-Alanis sense, is a section in the Guardian Weekend magazine last Saturday called OUCH. Yep, poking fun at ‘misprints, mistakes and misfits’ in other papers that readers have sent in. I wonder if I could still get the £15 book voucher if I sent one in from the Grauniad…

We'll Always Have Paris (or how David lost his Paris virginity)

Fiscally irresponsible? Yes.
Worth it? Definitely!
A last minute cheap flight coupled with the ability to be a kept woman in Paris saw me jetting off last Thursday to meet with Mr Dave. He came to Charles de Gaulle airport to meet me and, instead of a placard with my name, he waved a copy of Buffy - Contre Les Vampires at the arrivals gate.

Ah, a man after my own heart. Ah, Paris. We stayed in the Latin Quarter, right on St Michel boulevard. And, as it turned out, right in amongst some delightful and some shocking events. But more on that later.

As I arrived in the late afternoon (indeed an hour later than scheduled due to the plane), we headed straight for the hotel and then in search of dinner. Set menus are very popular and we found a french cuisine place where I had onion soup (yum!), some salmon and a chocolate mousse. All for the grand price of about 10 euros. After a wander around the area it was time for Bedfordshire.

The following day we made our way to the Louvre, walking through the pouring rain; a pilgrims trial to see the lady with the enigmatic smile, a trial which we bore with good humour. The buildings of the Louvre are a sight in themselves, so grand, majestic and, well, old.



Knowing that we would only be able to see a fraction of the treasures contained within, we made a slow beeline for the Mona Lisa, marvelling as much at the rooms as at the artworks themselves. After meandering through rooms of marble statues, 17th century paintings and Italian frescos it struck us that the only security guards we had seen were the ones guarding the Mona Lisa and preventing people taking photos of her. And one guarding the coronation crown of a Louis. Otherwise, the security was respectfully discreet and not noticed by us. Or they didn't have any.

It was in stark contrast to my experience at the National Gallery of Victoria when I saw the Impressionists exhibition. I realise the Gallery had borrowed the artworks so were extremely protective of them but it was faintly ridiculous when we were rudely shepherded out of the gallery at closing time into the bookshop. The bookshop of course had relevant items for sale and though I did manage to purchase a $50 book as I was being hustled out, security closed in around us. Then when we went to get our bags and coat from the coatcheck, security tried to push us out the door. When they did let me get to the counter, the staff had already tagged my bag as lost property. It was 4 minutes past closing time. At a number of tourist sites and exhibitions in Paris, they don't allow people in after a certain time so they have time to get through the exhibition. Civilised, no?



After a fulfilling Chinese very late lunch (and a nap) we set out in the evening for a long walk along the river to the beautifully lit Eiffel Tower. Nursing the thickest sweetest and creamiest hot chocolate, we settled on the lawns and watched the Tour sparkle as it does every hour.

The following day was our Day of the Dead. Okay, so, we started off at the Notre Dame and wandering about looking at all the amazing art. We noticed how all the images of Jesus appeared to have a Knights Templar cross on them (which I'm sure David will be looking into further). We sat for ages marvelling at an awesome marble statue consisting of an elderly man reclining in near death, death himself with creepy bones for hands, a woman pleading with death and a sad angel waiting for the inevitable. Ooh, hang on, I've got a pic!



And what is a visit to the Notre Dame sans feeding the dear sparrows? David learnt the trick from a regular guy:



Then it was off to the Pére Lachaise cemetery. Although I visited here last time I was Paris, Jason and I didn't have a map so many of the famous graves remained unvisited. My enduring memory from that first visit though was when we had just walked away from Jim Morrison's grave a minute before when I received a text message from Alex far away in the Louvre: Hi, Jim here. Glad you visited!
From the evidently still much loved grave of Edith Piaf (birthday cards, flowers, pictures placed all around) to the lipstick kisses of Oscar Wilde's resting place, this gothic and charming cemetery is a must see. Ooh, more pics:





From visiting the dead whilst remaining on the surface of Paris, we decided to visit the dead from below. Beneath the metro, beneath the water and sewerage levels, we descended to the catacombs. 1.6 kilometres of tunnels out at Denfert-Rochereau are filled with the bones of millions of past Parisians. In around the late 18th and early nineteenth century, the graveyards of Paris became overcrowded and a decision taken to exhume the cemeteries and place the bones down in three disused quarries under Paris. After consecrating the ground, the bones were at first piled in until the engineer decided to begin placing them more decoratively.

As it was decided to allow the citizens of Paris to visit the catacombs so that relatives could pay their respects, marble plaques and stones were set in front of the bones citing the year and graveyard from which they had been removed. There didn't appear to be any discrimination in terms of the occupants - princes and notable citizens along with paupers were removed to this place. Indeed around six million all told.

As you can imagine, walking into small dimly lit corridors with bones piled against the walls on either side of you can be confronting but honestly after five minutes or so it becomes like walking around a regular graveyard. Except when you hear a rat or feel the icy water slowly dripping from the roof to catch you on the back of the neck.







Later that night in our hotel room we heard a commotion outside and upon looking out from the balcony the streets of Paris had been overtaken by the Ramble: rollerbladers and skaters, at least two thousand of them sailed past at great speed at 1.30am. It was wonderful to watch, a critical mass taking over the streets. And on the shocking side, about an hour later we heard an awful scraping sound from the traffic - a motorcyclist had been knocked from his bike on one side of the intersection while the car dragged his bike across to the other. He stayed down till the ambulance came but the car that hit him did not stop. We hope he/she turned themselves in later.

On Sunday we visited the Luxembourg gardens; a beautiful palace with gorgeous grounds where people jogged, played chess on painted tables, read their books by the lake and watched their children play. Napoleon gave the park to the children of Paris and there is much to delight them; an awesome playground and toy boats for hire to send across the lake.





And thus ended my Paris journey and Dave stayed on for another day. Tune in for next time folks when I tell you of the anti-war protest in London and perhaps a little of the party we had last night for Steven's birthday.

Is it still raining there

Steven is a bit pleased with his new phone which plays MP3s, has a memory stick and talks to his computer. It makes coffee in the morning, cleans the bathroom and washes the sheets. It's also a phone. Which means I have more phone photos to share. In an episode of quid pro quo he waited for me while I had a haircut (at last!) and here you see the work in progress as well as a 'before' shot at breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Oh, and the hairdresser is from Adelaide!

Here also is a happy little snap of Jason and I cooling our heels in Chemille, France at the campsite I talked about earlier with the river and man made beach. Jason is looking very spunky and happy. Holidays suck, don't they? We did spend some time discussing how truly awful it all was.

And finally the railway bridge - Arna took this photo seated at the window of my flat. Brave (or stupid) souls risk life and limb to graffiti on the sides. We were attempting to catch the Eurostar as it went past but frankly we were too busy eating my delicious lamb roast and drinking too much wine to have the camera to hand at the right moments.

Well if things had gone according to plan I wouldn't be blogging right now - I've been expecting a phonecall from our Dave who flew in to Heathrow about 5 hours ago. He's going straight to Paris in about 3 hours and it's looking like he's breaking our brunch date. As his phone isn't on roaming and he may not be sure how to dial my numbers it looks like we'll be catching up when he gets back to London on the weekend.

I went to a dance party on a barge on Saturday - it was quite nice being down by the river (Thames) despite it being a wet night. Oddly enough it turned out to be a birthday party for one of the girls who DJed although tickets were sold to it - so I suggested to Steven that we sell tickets to our party next month at say £10 a pop and see if we can't pay for the booze that way! Cheeky, huh? Anyway, we were keen for dancing after a few drinks but we found that the flyer for the event which advertised funk and techno was perhaps forgotten by the DJs who pumped out drum and bass for a couple of hours. We just weren't up to that speed, if you understand me. At least upstairs was some improv jazz with a guitarist, two saxophonists and a trumpeter who jammed for most of the night. There were some VJs too which gave us something to look at in the pauses of conversation.

Speaking of cheeky, I rocked down to Electric Avenue yesterday to grab ingredients for my green chicken curry. There is a food market there every day and plenty of halal butchers and fish mongers. And whilst Alex managed to buy turkey rather than chicken in Germany (or was that France?) due to a translation problem, the 'chicken' breast I brought home yesterday looked far beyond a growth hormone anomaly. Oh yes, it was turkey. This wasn't me picking up a package and thinking it was chicken. Oh no, this is me asking the butcher for chicken thigh fillets and him saying they only had breast. No wonder it was only £2.

And if you weren't already convinced that everything is for sale and everything has a price, check this letter to Steven from BT. Okay so they're offering this service for free - but how did it become a service?

"Dear Mr xxx
Have you noticed that there are some people who view your telephone line as just another hot lead, and your front door as one more closed sale? We believe that interruptions to your daily life, caused by unsolicited sales calls and the pushy attitude adopted by some sales callers, are unacceptable. That is why we are offering you a new, free service called BT Privacy. It includes free BT Caller Display, which shows you who's calling, enabling you to decide whether or not to answer the phone. Plus there's automatic registration with the Telephone Preference Service which helps reduce the unsolicited sales calls you receive. In addition, we've included a sticker to help you deter door-to-door sales callers... You can rest assured that, at BT, we respect your privacy. And now, with the help of free BT Privacy, you can make sure everyone else does too."

Hmmm, I think we're talking irony in the non-Alanis sense. Steven has scrawled across the letter in black texta "My privacy is not for sale!". He will post it back to BT. Do you think BT will respect that? Or will they send another letter in six months... Or call.

Let me take you by the hand

Finally a couple of photos to share, although more will be coming soon. Here is Arna and I setting off on our Alpine ride from the highest city in Europe, Briancon, with the Tour route on the road you see behind us. We are looking tres professional, no? If you've ever avoided riding a bicycle because you're afraid of the idiots who try to kill you in their cars, trucks and buses, I recommend riding a bike in France. Not only is the sound of a diesel engine just as likely to be a Renault sedan as an enormous truck, but whichever it is will slow down and go right around you. Yes, a truck will actually slow down and wait until it can safely cross into oncoming traffic to avoid you. Even buses down city streets will do the same. It did not take long to cease to fear the sound of deisel and hold tight to the handlebars and position myself an inch from the side of the road. Just ride baby and the traffic takes care of itself.
And here too the Adelaide crew on the Champs Elysee on the day the Tour rode in to Paris. If you squint you can see the road sign on the building just in case you think I'm making it up. I wouldn't put it past me, would you?
I went to a barbeque last week and most of the guests were either from Adelaide or going out with someone from Adelaide! I don't think any of them knew each other from Adelaide but have since met in London. And while that's all a bit silly, it did put me in touch with two netball teams and I am getting a game tomorrow night.
The barbeque was in West Kensington, right in the thick of the Notting Hill Carnival on bank holiday Monday. It is an enormous street party which I believe started life in a civic hall as a celebration of Caribbean culture and has since branched out. There were official sound stages where the likes of Moby were playing but also other folk who hired PAs or used their own stereo systems from their houses or businesses on the street to add to the atmosphere. Lots of suburban superstar DJ set ups! Lots of barbequed chicken and drinks like fresh sugar cane and, needless to say, an enormous amount of people.
We went to a club on Friday night just around the corner with a couple of people from the barbeque which was great fun. Some of the group ended up in photos on a website devoted to um, clubbing. As I clearly didn't make the cut, I've added another high quality photo from Steven's phone to this blog to prove I was there. That's me with Anna and Donna, looking suitably trashed and oddly white faced. And yes, I do need a haircut. We're going out with the same lot this weekend.
Apart from being on the job hunt, I look out of the window when I hear shouting or broken glass which keeps me amused at all hours of the day.
And as the guy with whom Steven did a dodgy-back-of-the-van deal on a PA for his last party still hasn't come to pick it up, we're going to have a party soon. Hopefully the folk on the Eurostar will experience a certain ground shaking feeling as they ride by. Hah! Revenge!

London calling

It's 4:30am and I'm sitting in a flat in Brixton with a motorcycle helmet on my head which is playing Beck's latest album on a Spanish iPod. Don't ask.

Let's face it, I'll tell you anyway. Eventually.

We landed in London last night, me to my new digs and the rest to a hotel. The motorhome is safely ensconsed in Rochdale near Manchester but not without looking the worse for wear. Not sure if I mentioned previously the conversation between a tree in a caravan park in France and the motorhome. There was heated debate, an argument you could say. The motorhome lost the point. And we lost £500.

It could have been worse. We knew there was a £500 excess on the insurance, it was pointed out to us a number of times. What they didn't point out was that it applied only to damage lower than six feet on the vehicle. Que?!! Oh yes, they told us. It's standard in the UK. If damage is sustained above six feet from the ground, you have to pay the lot. The lot was £900 but they were willing to do us a 'deal' and only charge us £700. Bugger that, we said. Why do you get insurance cover with this exclusion if the vehicle is about 9 feet high? A vehicle that doesn't even begin till it's more than a foot off the ground. What's the bloody point? I think even most of the windows are higher than that. Short story was bloke getting dressing down from Arna and us walking away with what we thought we'd be up for.

I last wrote from Chemille I think. We had a hard dash up to Calais but we made it in plenty of time. Another self discovery: I don't travel on water well. When we took the ferry from Dover to Calais I was pretty queasy but I put it down to the jetlag and driving, the constant motion. Willingly standing out on deck in the cold and the rain in an effort to quell the sea in my stomach, I thanked the various shipping lines for having made the six hour ferry journey we had been thinking of too expensive.

And onto the motorways in the UK. After all the driving on the right side of the road we had gotten used to over six weeks, it actually took us more time to get used to driving on the left again, of expecting cars to merge from the right and going around roundabouts the correct way. Freaky. We arrived at Dover at around 10:30pm and drove until around 3am, stopping off to spend the night beside a park in a little village called Tottenham. In France the motorways have these free spots to stay called Aires and sometimes they have facilities like showers and places to dump your waste water etc. In the UK at the services on the motorways (petrol station, restaurant, games room complex) you can park for 2 hours for free but after that you have to pay £8 to stay in the carpark. Hence we parked on the side of the road in a village that night. I drove the next day into Edinburgh, a whopping six or seven hours behind the wheel and there were some fabulous 12% hills and narrow roads. We stopped at the border to Scotland. Lady Luck smiled when I made a wrong turn and discovered the caravan park that became our home for the next three days.

As has been my habit and I know you will not expect less from me, the facilities report is very favourable. The caravan park was situated on the grounds of a working estate with a beautiful manor house (administration building or residence, not sure) a surprisingly good restaurant in the stables building and acres of well kept grass with cattle and sheep fields beyond. The bathrooms etc were very good although the sinks were ridiculous: there were push button taps and the water pressure was so great you literally had to stand back two feet so as not to get soaked, stick just the corner of your toothbrush near the flow or certainly lose your toothpaste. They're sure not worried about wasting water in a town where, as I read on the side of a bus, it rains 312 days a year. Inexplicably, the bus advertisement imparting this shocking news followed it with the word 'brilliant'.

I will share a caravan park outrage: for the first time we encountered pitch police, important people with clipboards who inspected the camp every day at 12:30pm. Upon returning late from a day in the city we found a red tag on the awning of our motorhome with the words 'message at reception'. As Alex was expecting a fax, this was nothing unusual. Until the next morning when we discovered that we needed a permit (and to pay and extra £2 a night) to put out the awning. HUH? This awning is permanently attached to the motorhome, it rolls in and it rolls out to give shelter for maybe six feet (there's that magic distance again...). I'm still struggling to understand the policy. It sounds very petty I know but it seems common practice that you pay for a site and what you put on that side eg tables and chairs or whatever, is up to you. I leave that one to the puzzle box.

On to Edinburgh itself. The town is absolutely lovely, very hilly and cobblestoned with fabulous gothic and other architecture. Throughout August it is not just the Fringe going on; there are eight separate festivals held at the same, including the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle and a writers festival. The Royal Mile, which as the name suggests is the road leading to the castle, was absolutely packed with small stages and flyer distributors for the various festivals though mainly the Fringe. There is so much on. We only caught a couple of shows.

And on to my new home. It is on Brixton Road, right across from the tube station. It is loud and colourful and busy at all hours of the day. It is on the third floor above a shoe shop and the Eurostar goes past on the railway bridge right outside my bedroom window and makes the whole house shake. It's great! Exciting and new, which novelty always is.

Steven has been wonderful in providing me with a soft landing; I have my own bedroom, his old lap top to use on the wireless broadband connection, a UK mobile phone sim card and an A-Z London book so I have a tube map and road map to get around with. Today we had a full English breakfast and then he took me around on his motorbike and we shopped in Soho (well, he shopped and I tagged along) and drove through Piccadilly Circus, an apt name for that intersection! We also stopped by Stockwell tube station and looked at the memorial for Jean Charles de Menezes, the guy who was shot and killed by the police whilst running for his train. There were the Green Left equivalents on the street outside our place today with a megaphone, rustling up signatures for a petition to force the police chief to resign.

I hope to get some of Arna's pics up over the next couple of days; she's taken some real beauties over the trip.

And so endith the motorhome adventure but not the adventures of sidgirl. Stay tuned, folks.

x

J'adore France!!

Buggery bollocks !
I have just spent half an hour composing a superlative blog (well, I say it was superlative but really you’ll never know as recreation will be impossible) and the bloody server went down. I curse you Telecom France!
So, repeating myself only to myself (hence boring only myself, I flatter me, myself and I) my reflections on Germany, on balance, are that the north is a little cheerless, the south somewhat friendlier and on the whole Germany hasn’t quite done it for me which is a pity considering my Germanic heritage. Munich, like Cologne, was much more enjoyable and though perhaps my feelings have been dictated somewhat by the weather and the conditions of the caravan parks involved, I think it might be a better place to visit in the winter when the snow may make enchanting what the sun could not hide.
We had been keen to visit Vienna but the weather played the larger part in our decision to head for sunshine and replenishment of our fading tans. It was time to head west west west, for paradise is apparently there. And, sitting here in western France in 30 degrees, a little burnt from the 25km ride on our hired bikes, I have little to curse but French Telecom.
Our drive west headed for a short southerly detour to the Black Forest; a drive up misty and spooky hills and valleys. Hansel and Gretel got lost here, I whispered to the video camera on a little stroll. I have also captured Alex prancing about and humming "walk in the black forest". He’s a dill sometimes.
We headed for La Rochelle on the western coast of France, little anticipating the oft repeated France goes on holidays in August maxim would be so true. We were rejected from some six campgrounds "Non madam, ça c’est complet" but have found something a little inland which we flatter ourselves is even better - a municipal campground run by a cool chick. It has a man made beach on a river for swimming and very clean sanitaires (yes, I continue to report on the state of the toilets and though France has many things going for it, the cold porcelin sans toilet seat or the squats sans dry feet are not on the list).
We will be paying for this doing bugger all of nothing day tomorrow for we must drive to Calais to get the ferry back to the UK, some 500 odd kms up the road by 8pm tomorrow night. That, however, is tomorrow and in the meantime, after our ride back to camp we will swim in the river, cook something delicious and drink more beer.
Back in France I am once again struck by the siesta. I kid you not entire towns close down on the stroke of noon , or even before. In Avrille where we stayed a couple of days ago, the post office opened from 9.30 to noon, the library for one hour from 10 till 11 and the tourism office from 9 till noon. And that is their entire hours for the day, the siesta lasting till the following morning! Alex is working on his theory that no one in France actually works ; look around you at the countryside, feel the warm sun and find a bar tabac for a coffee or cool drink and you can hardly blame them. I think I want to live here, preferably in a Chalét or Château.
Jason and I had one of those moments today where, sitting outside the bar tabac with a café au lait (and they’re very shy with the lait) in the midday sun, quiet streets and waiting pushbikes; we toasted France with our coffee cups and lamented the cool weather before us in Scotland.
One of those things that I noticed about Germany is the cigarette machine; they were in most cafés and bars and restaurants and also in the middle of the street, down the most unlikely suburban streets even and the consequence is that no shop actually sells them. Compare and contrast with France where you can only buy cigarettes in a tabac. These tabacs are often combined with a bar in the smaller towns and it is these establishments that will be open in the day if any. But every town, no matter how small, manages to support one. I guess that is stout testament to the amount of smoking over here. Of course, you can still smoke in restaurants and just about any building which has been interesting to note how much our culture has changed in the last five years.
I love France.
We head for Edinburgh next to see a couple of days of the festival, return the motorhome, sorry, camping carrrr, to Manchester and spend four or five days in London before the rest of my family buggers off back to taunt you with slide show nights. The European adventure is coming to a close though we are all agreed that to live somewhere like Grenoble or Gap or any number of smaller towns in southern or western France is quite the thing.
Just a quick note on comments: thank you and keep them coming. I don’t reply to them as they are emailed to me from some kind of robot who wouldn’t care if I emailed it back at most or would rudely refuse to oblige me, which is usually the case. But I do get them and enjoy them so keep it up mon ami!
xx

München

Okay, so I´ve since thought the better of my tasteless reference to concentration camps in my last post but I leave my folly published so that you might see an improvement in my character. Or not.
I will just say on living conditions, that I am disappointed by the caravan parks in Germany since Köln. The one we have here in München (Munich) is another piece of it: the "shower" in a shipping container is just a tap coming out of the ceiling at full bore and cost 1.20 Euro for seven minutes (that´s about 2 dollars Aus). Coming as it does on top of 24 Euro for the night, it was around 30 Euro to stay and clean, around $50 Oz which is right up there in what we have paid so far. Again the electricity box was locked and the meter read before we were plugged in - I wonder if the price of electricity in Germany is very high, they just seem to make a fuss over it. Mind you, they didn´t in Köln so... I´m heartily sick of having to pay up to 1 Euro to go to the toilet just about everywhere, all the highway roadhouses, a number of restaurants and cafes in France and Germany. Not in Amsterdam that I recall.
I turn now to more pleasant goings on; forgive my bitch but a decent shower, toilet and cup of coffee are absent today which makes Sidgirl a VERY dull girl.
After the disappointment of Osnabrück, we drove down to Linden, around 60km north of Frankfurt. Here we caught up with Anya and her kids Nicholas and Evelyn. (Anya was married to Michael Nelson and lived in Adelaide for around three or four years). It was lovely to catch up and Anya took us for a picnic to a tower on a hill up above the village. We all rode pushbikes and the kids (4 and 2 1/2) rode in the "chariot", a contraption that Anya joined to the back of her bike. There were great views and it was picturesque to the extreme and a lovely contrast with Osnabrück. There were farmlands all around and harvest was very near of the wheat, possibly barley. We started off again on the bikes for a Roman fort which used to be the line between the Roman and erm, another empire, when Jason´s bike broke down such that the back wheel was completely stuck. So Alex rode on ahead to get back to the van so we could get tools and/or be picked up and he got lost, ending up in the next village. We set him to rights and now it was almost dark. At the little fort though was a little campfire surround, so we gathered wood from the nearby trees and, using an A4 piece of paper (indeed an invitation of Nicholas´s to a birthday party!) made an extremely agreeable fire while we waited. As we had plenty of food and drink with us, there was no drama and in the end we parked the motorhome alongside and stayed the night. Apart from the interruption of a combine harvester which, had a rather large trench not been between us, we were in danger of being harvested ourselves (and this at midnight!) it was a peaceful time. Much more peaceful than the next morning when the kids awoke at 6am and played with the stereo. And came at me with a lit torch to wake me up. I will not pretend to be a morning person, indeed there are those among you who will attest heartily to the fact that I am the complete opposite, but the kids were so sweet that I was soon able to forgive them their boisterousness (is that a word?) and give them whizzies and hugs. I did learn a couple of german words from little Evelyn like Ungfung (which is begin, especially within the context of food!). Nicholas still speaks very good English as well as German.
After much cake and showers, we hit the road again and drove for around five hours, heading for München. I´ve no idea of the town where we eventually stopped down the end of a dead end street, drew up all the blinds and expected an official knock on the door at any moment to move us on from the non parking zone. This was after our unsuccesful attempt to stay in the clearing of a forest - a gameskeeper moved us on from the hunting ground. Well I guess a parking inspector is better than a 12 gauge!
No such calamity befell us however and moved on very early for München. We stopped at Dachau and walked through the former concentration camp (now do you see why I am grown humble?). It was not unusual to find people wiping their eyes as they moved through the camp and museum and unfortunately it was not usual to see people smilingly posing in front of memorials and the famous gates but I leave their feelings and actions to their own reflections. Suffice to say it was moving and mostly devoid of hysterical emotion in its presentation.
On to München, a short drive from Dachau and last night we went into town. Having armed ourselves with some lonely planet eateries, eventually found our way to the Fraunhofer, a restaurant come beer hall which was loud, pleasant and smoky. Ordering food was made a little easier by a one page dictionary they supplied with the menu and though a number of things on the menu had no definition, we were able to stay away from the ox face and unnecessary parts of swine. I ordered something that I sort of expected to be like a gnochi cabonara but was more like a spanish omlette with dumplings. It was tasty though. And Jason had the best steak we´ve seen. I say this in the light too of Köln where Arna and I´s medium rare steaks came without a trace of pink.
We are off exploring München in our own ways today, meeting back at the Marienplatz in time to hopefully see the town hall play the glökenspiel and spin around the little scene of happy dancing Germans, a bit like a giant cuckoo clock or musical box. There´s some fab gothic architecture around. Most of the shops are closed today (it being Sunday) though no one is laughing. We´re sure the shopping hours lobby said we´d be the laughing stock of the world if we didn´t allow the big shops to open on Sundays. Well they don´t open on Sundays and sometimes even Mondays in the countries we´ve been in. And still the tourists come.
We´ve not quite worked out the rest of our intinerary, though perhaps Vienna is next on the cards. We will then make our way back to the UK and probably meet up with Caroline and Nick in Scotland where the Edinburgh Fringe should give us plenty of distraction.
Till next time, folks.
x

Osnabrück

Having been reuinited with our companions in Liege (Belgium), we made our way to Köln (Cologne, Germany). It is a lovely town, we went to a church in the centre, I forget it's name (!) which was apparently the target for three years of allied bombing during the second world war but they missed! It was about the only thing left standing. It was the highest tower in Europe before the Eiffel was built (c1890) and you can climb to the top up an extremely narrow concrete staircase which handles two way traffic only when those climbing up cling to the centre pole to allow those coming down to pass. As it was all enclosed most of the way I was able to climb without much thought - but we got to a larger room near the top and the way up was via metal stairs and I got a few flights up before abandoning the project. But as my brother is reading "Feel the fear and do it anyway" and made the attempt again and got all the way to the top though not without a few tears. I'm hopeless, huh?
The view was fab though I stayed away from the edge, and I managed the presence of mind to film with the video camera.
The stained glass in the church was amazing, ask Arna for the photos.
We had hired bikes, much like Amsterdam, and the caravan park was around 7km from the centre. If ever you are camping in Köln, this caravan park is a must! Never had we seen such clean showers etc and the staff were most helpful and efficent. I expected nothing less from the Germans, ya?
But however, the comparison with Osnabrück, where we are now, is not favourable. We are staying in a caravan park by the lake which is lovely to look at but it is run like one of those camps they used to have hereabouts. Yeah, okay, that's in bad taste but it is run by a dragon lady and you need a key to get into the showers which then are dirty and cost 50 cents to have 8 minutes of hot water- at the end of eight minutes, the hot water shuts off and freezing cold water is left on! You must ask Jason about the washing machine incident - suffice to say it was also under lock and key when I spied it this morning in the women's shower room, though it's existence had apparently been denied.
Osnabrück is where Arna's mother is from and I own I understand perhaps why she left. We are in the zentrum (centre of town) and it has little to recommend it. It is quite industrial and I don't think it fared particularly well during the war, the tourist sites are few.
We have no current plans re destination though perhaps a visit to a concentration camp will form part of our transient itinerary, I think we are in discussion as to whether Berlin or Vienna is next.
Must go, leave comments if you would like to - I do enjoy hearing from you all.
Till I write again!
sidgirl
xx

Still in Amsterdam

Oh the blessing of the qwerty keyboard, let me sing thy praises.
Your Q is next to your W, not on the bottom row where some would have you sit; oh no! You take your rightful place under my last two fingers of the right hand, on the top rows, in important places!
Okay, enough.
We have been in Amsterdam for a few days now and it is such a relaxing, friendly city. Again the architecture is something from a story book, a pop-up one, as if there is nothing behind the facade. Canals are everywhere, as are the bicycles and the cats (I miss my little Genki very much in this town for every cafe seems to have a resident cat who lolls about on the footpath accepting pats). It is much cheaper here than in Paris and the service is friendly and English is so widely spoken that we do not feel lacking in communicative abilities.
We are staying at the Singel Hotel, right on one of the main canals - it is staffed by lovely people, especially the breakfast manager who is delicate in his attentions to the half awake guests - an important skill indeed! Yesterday morning Jason and I rushed down to breakfast at 9.50 (it finishes at 10am) and with glazed eyes surveyed the almost full room and heard giggling as we entered - it seems the whole room had come for breakfast in the last few minutes and it had become a little joke amongst them. Check out is 12 noon, which for a city which allows you to get ripped off your tits, is courteous.
Ali, Christian and Sara left this morning - Ali & Christian to fly home and Sara to spend a few more days in the UK before heading back. It was a little teary.
Jason and I meet up with Arna and Alex in Liege tomorrow night (Belgium) and perhaps to Germany thence.
Keep tuned!
x

What to do in Amsterdam?

I love France. Paris was lovely though expensive and the service and hospitality was nothing compared to the countryside. I highly recommend getting down to the Alps - cities like Grenoble and Gap and fab and do remind one of Adelaide with some wide boulevards but also some really narrow cobblestoned streets that I can certainly recommend not to take a 'camping carrrrr' down. I plan to go back to Paris because there's so much to see and so little time. The things about France that I do not take to as well: widespread lack of toilet seats, paying to go to the toilet. It all about the toilet, really. That and two camping grounds: Camping Bois de Boulonge in Paris is absolutely, by far, the WORST CAMPING GROUND IN FRANCE. The service is abominable, the services very few (pools were standard in just about every other place in France), they wanted six euro to use a washing machine (read about 10 dollars) and the sanitaires were the most disgusting place where their version of cleaning them was to take a hose and spray cold water across the floor - and even, as Mum found, under the door when you're on the toilet. I can not say enough rude things about it. The second camping ground to avoid is the one in Briancon in the Alps. We took the trouble of booking the day before because the Tour de France was stopping and starting a stage from there. We turned up, it was raining and tremendously busy. Of course they'd put my booking in for the following day and now they had no room but they would find somewhere. They wanted to give us the side of the road at the back of the camping ground, next to a huge under road drain, and run our electricity cable over the road! And pay for the privilege! We went back to the office and said it wasn't acceptable and the man was so rude, I can hardly tell you. But clouds and silver linings, or even abrupt about turns of luck do exist. We left in very poor humour and had gone down the road a couple of hundred metres to a T junction when we saw a sign in French which we desiphered to mean - free camping for the tour de france. A farmer had opened up a field on the side of the road and there were a couple of other camping carrrs there. Gratuite!! What's more, the next morning we awoke to find we were on the Tour route so we brought the van back up to the side of the road and drank our morning coffee as the bikes sailed by. We also got a bunch of free stuff from the 45 minutes of caravan that comes before the bikes: some hats, coffee, pretzels, keychains. So we fart in the general direction of those campsites.
In Paris Jason and I went up the Eiffel Tower, up god knows how many steps, to the second viewing platform. Me and heights are not the best of friends but I conquered. The view was of course fabulous. We did have a worried moment when we walked around the western side to see two separate columns of black smoke pouring into the sky, not terribly far apart - was it the metro? Had the bombs come to Paris too?
Still don't know what it was. And the next morning (yesterday) when Jason and I left Paris we arrived at the metro just as a train left. No one was on the platform and someone had left a small backpack on the seat.
It's paranoid yes, but you can't help looking about you and being wary. You sit on the train and think, this is where this sort of stuff happens.
Must say it has given me a little to think about with living in London - one of the failed attacks last week was on the line I will be taking.
Then we also climbed the Arc de Triomphe. I do advise you don't climb them both in the same day. Unless of course you're aiming for a butt of steel. The tomb of the unknown soldier at the bottom is sobering and the art on the arc itself is stunning.
So Jason and I took a train from Paris to Amsterdam yesterday and have ended up in the same hotel, indeed two doors down the corridor, from Christian, Ali and Sara.
Last night we went out for a lovely Thai meal (yes! Green chicken curry at last!) and thence to the red light district. We dawdled down the streets filled with shop windows with red lights and women in their underwear. Some are talking on their phones, some are doing their toilette, some are gyrating and some are so young it's heartbreaking.
But what is a visit to Amsterdam without trying the local produce?
We found a coffeehouse called Free Adam. It had the obligatory reggae music, pictures of Bob Marley etc. And a large menu of grass and hash.
Feeling a little Sound of Music, we ordered the Eidel Weiss. He warned us that it was strong and we thought 'ha! we're from Adelaide!'. I think he had the last laugh. We couldn't finish a joint between four and debated for some time as to whether we were allowed to take it with us for we had barely touched the baggie. It was about Adelaide prices - a 12.50 euro bag was about equivalent to a $25 one.
So we wandered about the red light district some more with increasing paranoia. Men stand on the street and speak as you go by: "Cocaine? Ecstasy?" We were offered it all. Live sex shows "real fucking and sucking?" for 25 euro. We were kindly informed by an English man whose mate had just entered one of the shop windows to partake of a black woman that a headjob was 20 euro, 30 for the lot and 50 if you want a white girl. So there you are - cheap, no?
We slept very late indeed today and took a canal cruise for an hour. There are canals everywhere, coming out in a concentric circle from the main train station. Some of the buildings were built in the sixteenth century and they love their tall, narrow decorative ones. Almost cardboard cut outs. We will stay here another day or so and then catch up with the folks somewhere nearby. We will then probably journey to Germany. Will write again soon!
x

In Gay Paris

Okay, so we're in Paris and have found more internet!
We arrived yesterday (Friday) in the late afternoon and oh my god - DO NOT DRIVE A MOTORHOME AROUND THE ARC DE TRIUMPH!! (pardon the spelling). It was absloutely crazy, an enormous roundabout that admits of perhaps eight lanes though none are marked - vehicles come from all directions to cross in all directions!
We have met up with Christian, Ali and Sara and Arna and Alex are at present with Nick and Caroline. The Aussi contingent is now grouped!
We have been travelling around the French countryside which is absolutely beautiful, the French Alps and Provence particularly are awesome - picture postcard villages with narrow main streets and shutters on all the windows; we stayed for a night by a lake, swimming in the 36 degree heat whilst viewing the snow topped alps.
We met up with Phil and Sue in Nice but we had not been there long before Sue's bag was stolen from under her feet - goodbye passport. Unfortunately they then had to cancel the trip to Italy we were to take and go back to Paris to get another passport.
Arna and I rode our bikes a couple of times - once through the Alps from just outside Briançon (the highest city in Europe) for around 30km of descents in the 13 and 12%!!! I screamed out loud coming down through hairpin turns with both brakes on - awesome.
We also rode from Nice to Cannes; again around 30km of coastal road. Beach wise, Nice has stones, like river stones and you have to wear your shoes right down to the water; some people weren't bothered and we lying on their towels on the rocks. But Cannes! Sand, kiosks, topless women (I put that in for the benefit of the blokes for Jason and Alex were in heaven!)and the water is so much warmer and saltier and they don't have sharks at all - best swim in the ocean I've ever had.
Jason and I went out on the town in Aix en Provence (pronounced ex, like the letter x); we drank at a pub where the bartender clocked me as Australian as he'd spent some years in New Zealand, though born in Poland, lived in other places - I think he spoke about four languages which was handy. After the pub closed we had a postcard moment when we went down the road to a club - the doors were closed over and then a small sliding at eye level came open and we were checked out by the doorman before being allowed to enter. The place was jumping; a live band (they LOVE reggae in France!) and heaps of people; it was really fun and the first time we'd gotten to really go out in a decent sized place.
Today we went to the cemetry and paid our hommages to Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and all that - really amazing monuments and graves. There is a permanent security guard stationed at Jim's grave - they've cleaned up all the graffiti and fenced it off and the bust of his head that used to be there is long gone.
Tonight we plan to climb the Eiffel tower and tomorrow we will watch the Tour come down the Champs Elysee and somewhere in there too we will fit in the Louvre etc. There is so much to do and I hope we get through it all!
After Paris we do not have any fixed engagements so perhaps to WWI country in Northern France, thence to Amsterdam, Germany and who knows shere else - we have three weeks before heading back to the UK.
Sorry I've not had time to email - the pressure is on in these cafes and progress still somewhat impeded by the strange keyboard. I hope you are all well.
Au Revoir, mon amie!
xx

Internet at last

Bonjour tout le monde!
I am typing on a french keyboard so I am perhaps not quite as expressive as I would like.
We are in Gap in the south of France and it is very hot today - this little cafe is boiling so I will not write much.
The day after we arrived in Windsor (an hour from London) the bombs went off in the tube. The landlady at the pub where we were staying spent an anxious day on the phone - her son's girlfriend was on the train that went past the one that was bombed; what a contrast in the newspaper headlines - from celebrating London having gotten the Olympics to terrorism.
We have come across the Tour de France a few times, sometimes by accident. We stayed in a farmer's field outside Biançon to find ourselves on the route agqin so we had our morning coffee in our PJs and watched it go past. We waved our Aussi and boxing kangaroo flags with pride. Yesterday we were watching the race in a bar when Aussi Robbie McEwen won - we were loud in our cheering as you can imagine.
We have travelled some hairy roads through the Alps in the motorhome (that is, camping carrrr) and geez the scenery sucked; hot days in a lake surrounded by mountains upon which you could see snow.
Tomorrow we go to Nice and thence to Italy.
Internet access has been very poor but here's hoping to be more frequent in future!

Award winning pesto

Found a way to publish photos (I think!). I thought it would show on this page but it could be my browser. If you see a little square in the top left corner of this post, click on it! I thought I'd try it out with a pic of my award winning pesto. Yes, in September 2004 I submitted 175g of basil pesto to the Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society's annual show in Adelaide, South Australia. 2004 was the year of embracing my inner grandma, you understand.
I also entered a banana cake and some friends entered some preserves and anzac biscuits (I always thought the latter might be a bit ambitious for a beginner, but he insisted). I slaved away over my banana cake, making about four of them before show day; trying out different oven times and temperatures, ratios of banana to flour, a horrid icing accident and experiments with shape.
Indeed the time and effort on the banana cake, which I was sure was going to be my stellar baking product, meant that I whipped up the pesto at 11.30pm the night before.
Needless to say, my pesto won second prize (and the money was as much as second prize in a beauty contest in Monopoly - $10!) and my poor banana cake didn't rate a mention in the top six. Whilst it never happened during my pre-show warm up, my show banana cake was not fully cooked all the way through!
It's true, friends. I don't talk about it much and I'll thank you not to mention it. Let's focus instead on the eminently edible pesto, which I served up to a couple of lucky people with grilled cherry tomatoes and potato gnocci.

Almost Gone

So I leave in 10 days - see you at my drinks if you're coming!