Billy in Munich

I can't remember if I've mentioned that our Billy moved to Munich with his German girlfriend. They moved about two months ago and are enjoying it.

They seem to be getting into all sorts of things and have done an 80km bike ride to raise funds for Unicef. Billy looked a little bit tired at the end of it:

They also enjoy their breakfast on their apartment's balcony. With so many trees around it, the sound of birds singing is a great start to the day.

Billy will start a German course tomorrow (trying to learn the language on his own was proving to be a challenge). He posted this video on Facebook to illustrate how different it is from other languages:



We hope to visit them in September. It should be interesting to compare Munich to Leipzig, which we visited in 2008. We spent Christmas with Sandra's family and can't remember eating so much in our lives! Sandra's mom is an accomplished cook, but she overdid it a bit. We had several meals each day and they were all enormous!

We can't wait to see both of them again. The last time they were here together was in 2012. Here they are, at the Soirée Européenne.

While we count the days until September, we'll practice some German.

Guten tag!

Sightseeing with the nephew

My nephew returned to Dublin on Tuesday and we uploaded the photos he took with his phone to my computer before he left. TW, CC and IG will recognize some of the places in Uzerche and Treignac (we didn't make it as far as Tulle when they came over).

UZERCHE

TREIGNAC

TULLE

Surreal cartoon

Today I'm posting something quickly because my nephew is visiting us (the one staying in Dublin) and we want to go out to show him our beautiful corner of France. He has fallen in love with Dublin and has very nice things to say about our Irishgirl. He reckons she's an excellent cook!

Old age etiquette

My sister Dora sent me a video by email, saying she was sure I would enjoy it. I replied that she had shown me the video when she was here last July.

I loved her reply:

"Well, if I forgot I had already shown it to you, the very least you could have done was to forget that you had already seen it!"

Back to normal... but a bit boring!

Today's post is late because we went to Brive to take Dora to the station. Her original ticket was from Uzerche, but she would need to change trains (with only 10 minutes to spare), carrying the luggage from hell (CC knows all about this type of luggage), so we decided to make life easier for her. We have just returned and the house feels very empty. We're going to the beach now because it's very hot.

I'll leave you with photos of last night's dinner.

Migas de pan, a Spanish peasant dish

Dora saying cheers and bye bye...

Music and children

Camille Saint-Saëns's "Carnival of the Animals" is often used to introduce children to classical music. Our family was no exception and we enjoyed identifying each other as one of the animals. My sister was very thin and we used to say she was the bones (The Fossils). This particular piece is based on Saint-Saëns's own "Danse Macabre," a symphonic poem, with bits of traditional French nursery rhymes woven into it.






I was the kangaroo, possibly because I couldn't stay still...

Ah... to be young and have a Lambretta!

Peter and I were rummaging through some old stuff, looking for old birth certificates - Peter is hellbent on finding his ancestors - and we came across this photo.

Peter was only seventeen, and as you can see, he was always a short little fella. Ha ha! Already 6'3"!

We managed to go back to 1845, when Peter's great-grandfather was born. The birth certificate is in a very sorry state but the names and dates are still legible. We also found loads of photos, among them this one of Peter's grandfather Rupert (born in 1869) which was taken around 1910/1915. I can see similarities between the two of them, especially now that Peter is older.

The woman in the next photo is Elizabeth, Rupert's mother, born around 1847.

Doesn't she look a bit like Alex Kingston?

It's very interesting to go down memory lane and unearth such old photographs, taken more than a hundred years ago!

Las Alpujarras

My maternal grandparents were born in Granada, Spain. I still have many cousins over there and have visited the family a few times. One memorable trip was in 1979, my first, when I was still married to my first husband, Martin. Most of my mother's cousins were still alive and there were many young second cousins, making the family gatherings nothing short of epic. We counted 33 people at a restaurant where all the tables had to be joined to accommodate us!

One of my mothers' cousins, Paco, was a salesman for a wine producer of the Denominación de Origen Valdepeñas. His patch covered an area called Las Alpujarras, on the Sierra Nevada. He invited us to go with him on his rounds so we could see the lovely whitewashed houses adorned with geraniums, the narrow streets and all that. So we went.

The first couple of villages were OK, not too high, but Paco's enthusiastic style of driving on those narrow, winding mountain roads was beginning to alarm us, especially as we were due to climb higher and higher. Martin was turning a funny shade of green and we were definitely scared. We were stuck with Paco until he finished his rounds and the only solution at that point was to start joining in the wine tasting. The wines were excellent and if we plunged down the mountain, at least we would be too merry to care!

Lovely pair

The other day I posted some photos of mothers and their babies. Today it's a father's turn...

Party and some sightseeing

Last night we went to our friend Hilary's 60th birthday party, which was great. Today we went to Uzerche for some sightseeing. The weather has been absolutely fantastic for our Aussie visitors!

Hilary and hubby are quite fond of a drop (or two) of wine...

Juz, Paul and Hilary (with the plant they gave Hils)

Yours truly with Peter

Some happy cows having their own party nextdoor

 These are the photos of Uzerche: