the eiffel tower by night

claire and em

isn't it pretty?!

claire

outside the louvre

a gorgeous day in paris

me!

two words .... bird flu

chasing the pigeons

claire in st mark's square

local kids playing in st mark's square

st mark's square

The last time Woz and I were in Venice it was late December and in St Mark's Square there wasn't a person in sight, let alone a pigeon. But this time we discovered it as it should be experienced, buzzing with cafe-goers, photographers, oh and did I mention pigeons?

glove envy

gondolas on the canal

a typical view from a bridge in venice

a window onto venice

On Monday Claire and I flew out for Venice where I discovered a new love for the city. This was taken in our hotel room in the morning of our first day. We tried to capture the warm light streaming into our room.

woz and claire

Woz has now included a complimentary bike tour of the sights of London to all our (willing) guests! Would you trust that face?!

and another one of me!

A warm autumn night on the Thames

looking over westminster

yours truly

em and claire

September also brought a visit from Claire, although a much more extended one than our other guests. She's here for two months on and off and so we've had fun catching up and hanging out in London. Here's us on the London Eye at dusk.

sampling the produce at portobello rd market, notting hill

papillon

After so many trips to Little Venice and back with our guests, we decided that with the luxury of a little more time we'd let our little boat "stretch her legs" and explore a little further. We had no idea, but after Little Venice we were able to cruise continuously with no locks for about six hours, bringing us right out into the English countryside. We had a great trip and moored for the night outside a lovely restaurant where we ate dinner. This shot was taken in the morning from outside the restaurant.

fi and em

ron and fi on the thames

Ron and Fi arrived in September to spend a little over a week with us. Fi, Ron and I had a lovely time together cruising the Thames.

a lot to catch up on ....

So much has happened since I last wrote, and I think I could be here for hours trying to fit it all in. So, read on as I try to capture the last few months in different entries.

apologies to all!

Well it's been a month since my last entry and I would like to thank those loyal readers who have logged on each day in vain! Unfortunately our monitor packed it in a month ago and after much investigating it seems that they don't make things to last these days and so rather than repair the monitor we bought a little over a year ago, we have had to buy a new one.

Where can I start? If we didn't already love London then we're completely sold after the last few months of summer. Expecting the worst from an English summer we've been absolutely spoilt with about two or three wet days in months. We've spent lots of evenings after work having picnics in the park (Regents, Green or Hyde Park), dipping our feet in the fountains at Trafalgar Square and watching the world go by, and have taken the boat out loads of times to cruise the canals!


Over the last month we've had Katie stay with us again, Jerry has come and gone, Claire and now Woz's parents, Ron and Fiona staying with us. We've had a ball and have also been quite busy with the boat inbetween.

Boat wise ... we moved out of the boat a few weeks ago, took everything that wasn't fixed and moved onto a neighbour's boat so we could sand and stain our floorboards (photos to come), we also finally have a bathroom wall (encouraged by the fact that our parents were staying with us) and so our guests can use the toilet without having to ask everyone to look the other way and sing loudly!

We had some really exciting news too which I'm sure is not news now to most of you - my brother Tim and Katie got engaged which we're rapt about. So we'll be home in April next year for their wedding. Woz can't wait as he will be in the wedding party.

This weekend we took the bike on it's first long journey from London to Brixham in Devon. We went down to say goodbye to Woz's cousin Mariece and her fiance Kevin before they fly to Australia to be married and to live. Brixham is a gorgeous little fishing village and we loved exploring it on the bike.

After staying overnight at a B&B last night we headed off early this morning to get home and back to Heathrow to pick up Ron and Fiona. It was a crisp and cold morning and it was good to head off early and see the world waking up. You get a lot of time to think when you're a pillion passenger on the back of the bike and as we were driving though the fields (or paddocks in Australian!) I was thinking that they were not disimilar to Gippsland, but just as I was thinking that I saw a circle of stones standing up in the middle of a paddock and realised it was Stonehenge! It was very sureal and I'm not sure we actually saw it as it was very early and there wasn't the droves of tourists I imagined would be surrounding it. It was very beautiful and just the way one should discover Stonehenge I think!