Photos du royaume

It was a joke, of course, THIS is the post I am dedicated to you, big sister. This post is happening thanks to you; I had given up on the blog, not being able to make my pictures bigger (cf: previous post, with shitty little photos) but you have saved me. You knew exactly how to solve the problem: ask Thomas!
So it's only fair that I dedicate this one to you (and it's also because I'm feeling a little bit guilty because I've said for months that I would send you pictures of our new house, and I'm only do it now. As you can tell by my outfit, these pictures were not taken yesterday!)

Oh, any chance you could solve my new problem? How do I get rid of the underline. The icon is not on the toolbar and I've tried ctrl+u, but still nothing.

So, let's go back to the beginning....
It all started, in a little house, at the bottom of a hilly garden, by the sea, last July.

Thanks to Celia's amazing knowledge on how to manage a blog (aka: her husband), I managed to make my pictures bigger. So, the house with the red bottom-half, in the background, is ours. (Notice how suddenly, the underline disappears? This thing is driving crazy).

This is the first room you get in (through the wooden and glass door). It's a cloakroom-slash-office-slash-hall, and it features an original woodburner. Unfortunatly, it's blocked, so at the moment, we just have to make-do with being cold.
The second door on the left takes you to...

...the living room. The carpet is already reserved, sorry for the disappointment.
You are not dreaming, the ceiling (beautiful artec) is indeed beige/khaki, thanks to the previous owners being heavy smokers. The nicotine-ridden walls also add a comforting and welcoming smell to our house.
These pictures were taken on the day we were given the keys, and there was already a present waiting for us, that the postman had delivered on that very same day. Thank you Celia and Thomas for this wonderful house-warming present. What a great book, we just cannot put it down. (Revenge is coming!)

The kitchen, which you enter from the last door, the door near the woodburner on the hall picture above.
The floor was covered in lino, then rubber tiles underneath. What you see is the wooden floors underneath all that. This door is the second entry (from the left of the house).

And this was the space behind the cooker. Niiiice!

From the living room, accross the hall, up the 4 steps, and hop, here we are on level two.


On level two, left of the 'stairs' there's bedroom One. The Master Bedroom!
The carpet...

was quickly removed, as you can see on the above picture. The mirror too, was quickly removed.

Bedroom Two. Not decided what was uglier yet: the wallpaper or...


...or the double layer of carpet?

And opposite you, when you walk up the grand staircase, the bathroom and toilets, jeust next to it. The wall between the toilet and the bathroom is beig removed this weekend.


So, in the end, we are very happy with our buy. We know there is still a helluva lot to do, but we feel good here, even though a little bit cold (the heating still hasn't been installed).

We also have lovely neighbours, including the ones who called in shortly after we moved in and brought us homemade cookies and a lovely card. Very Brie Vandercamp-like.

And in the end, it's all worth it, just for the view at the top of our garden.

leger contre-temps

Oui, je sais grande soeur, on s'est parle au telephone ce soir et je t'ai dit que les photos de notre maison allaient apparaitre ce soir meme...
Mais voila, y a eu la soupe a rechauffer, le dejeuner de demain a preparer, le porridge du petit dej a faire... et de fil en aiguille, il est l'heure de regarder un film (ca sera meme pas The Garden, puisque Phil me bassine depuis des semaines pour qu'on regarde sonprograme sur Churchill) et j'ai plus le temps pour les photos.
Demain, c'est guitar lesson, mais promis, jeudi soir, je m'y mets.

En attendant, ce poste, je te le dedicace :)

A jeudi si vous le voulez bien.

Our own Taj Mahal

Dare I say that our blogposts are like pints of Guiness: they come to those who can wait.

It's been a while, and we've missed you. Thank you for being patient, and thank you to everyone who haven't yet lost faith in us and still tell us that they really like our blog and want some more. And lastly, thank you for our only two survivors, Thomas and Jess, who haven't given up on motivating us and wrote posts to encourage us. This post is dedicated to you, guys.

So here come the much awaited pictures of our new house/home/nest/Taj Mahal/ruin/den. As you can see, it's a bit of all of that at the moment. It's still a building site, and will be for a little while longer, but we already feel at home there. It's as cold as the cottage in Alfriston (no central heating yet), it's as cosy as our Nissan in Australia (we sleep in the hall way at the moment, as the bedroom isn't yet finished), it's as lovely as our flat in Edinburgh and it's stinks as much as all the student houses we stayed in when we were students.

And here it is... (click on the photos to make them bigger and clearer... for some reason they are smaller)

It's the house after the turn, which is half red, half white and has a garden that looks like a hill.



From a little bit closer. As you can see, there was a lot of cleaning to do.

It's not much fun living out of boxes. This is our sun room and most of our wordly-possession. Most of it belongs to the kitchen (apart maybe from the lawn mower).

When I said the garden looked like a hill, Phil would say it's more like a mountain, as he's the one mowing it. (I say, it's character building!)


And you'll agree that it is worth it as this is the view that we have from the top of the garden. I admit, it's a bit of a treck to climb up, it's not for the faint-hearted, but hey, we have a sea view.



And we can almost roll down the hill and access our pebble beach (it's good for the circulation of the blood in our feet, albeit painful). We haven't swam in it yet, and don't think we will. At least, not until we have acquired dry-suits.

Telecommunication problems

Yes, it's true we said we would be good again and would put up more posts on our blog, but things aren't going as smoothly as we had hoped. British Telecom is playing hide and seek with us and never turn up to our house at the right time to set up our telephone line. I am writing this post from my parents in law's, highjacking their computer for a little update. When BT decided it is time we are connected to the rest of the world, we will put up pictures of the house, its progress, and I promise, I will reply to my emails. I started work last Thursday, very excited about the prospect of checking my emails and favourite blogs, only to find out that my new school's network doesn't allow to waste my time on my Gmail... Surely, keeping in touch with the my friends to find out what they did during their holidays is necessary for being able to teach children properly. No?

In the meantime, Phil has downsized some photos from our holidays in Corsica this summer, ready for the blog.

Le Golfe de Lava, en allant chez notre cousin Paul, a Pevani.

La sieste, en Corse, c'est sacre. Meme au moment du coucher de soleil.

C'etait de l'escalade, mais ca valait le coup;

et voila le resultat...


Et la, c'est Philip qui fait l'artiste.

Les calanque de Piana.Tu le vois le petit coeur, dans le rocher?


Une soiree memorable sur la wii avec les cousins.


Et pour finir, la vue de la fenetre. On a vu pire...

New York, New York (en technicolour)

Here we are. It's sad but this is the last post on our travels around the world. I know it's been a long time since we've been to New York (last December) and we are sorry it took so long. Not having the internet at home has been a huge barrier to being up to date with communication (hence our lack of email responses as well).

But fear not, reader, as we are back. This time, not with our rucksacks and sunglasses, but with our trowels and hammers. No, Phil isn't (yet) building me a temple in the style of Ramses II, like he promised, but we have just bought a house, and it needs, let's say, a little face lift (to put it nicely).

We are extremely excited about renovating our new home by ourselves, and wanted to share its progress with you; it will be a little bit like one of those TV programme (you know, Grand Design or Property Ladders), just without the adverts (and the extra fast builders).

So before we share our house ups and downs, we thought we would post those long awaited pictures of New York.

I will let you know when the blog will be next updated via email. We are off to Corsica this weekend and won't have time to put up pictures of the house before we go. I'll let you know when something new comes up.

In the mean time, here are our last drops of adventures, somewhere accross the Atlantic Ocean...

Conclusion: We adored New York and have promised ourselves to go back again. It was absolutely freezing, we stayed in a Youth Hostel (we had completely ran out of money at that point), and we ate nothing but junk food (well, actually, that wasn't so bad) but we loved it.

My favourite part: The Nutcracker by the New York City Ballet.

Phil's favourite part: The Big M&M's Shop.

New York, New York (in black and white)

Quand l'appetit va, tout va....

C'est un secret pour personne, Philip et moi, on aime manger. On n'a pas fait que ca quand on etait a New York (en Decembre), mais presque.







Une tranche de pizza aussi grande que le Chrysler Building.

Le paradis de Philip: The Big M&M's shop!

My personal favourite...

An Obama cupcake: Yes, we can!