Friday 9 December

As much as I am terribly busy; after all I am heading out at 5.30 tomorrow morning, I just had to show you this... look what I saw in front of my house this evening!

It is the first evening of the escalade. As much as I would like to be out enjoying the party, I must must must pack!

Here are a few more photos taken as the parade passed by:

Sunday 4 December

A busy few days. Friday night was quietish; supposed to be busy meeting a friend for dinner, but that fell through. Saturday was a bit busier. I went out for a rather secret mission in town.... my first flash mob.

There I met William an American in town just for a few days. He tagged along with me as I wandered around town a bit, and I was able to give him a few handy pointers for dealing with buses, trains etc. I had been invited to a party and since he was at a loose end, invited him along.

Then I headed home for a brief shower. Then back on the buses to try and meet a friend of mine for a quick cuppa before he flew out, as otherwise we won't see each other until about March! He was at work (on a Saturday at 5pm!) but by the time I got to his work, he had popped out. So much for a surprise visit. He called though, and we did in fact meet for a few brief moments before I met up with William to take him to the party.

The party was for my friend Oggie's birthday - the party I went to one week early. So it was back to Faim? where I got to say hi again to Niels, who had been such pleasant company last week. The party was fun and I got to meet a few new faces, which was nice.

William was a great drop-in guest. He was self sufficient and outgoing enough that I could introduce him to some people, chat with the group for a while and he would happily continue to chat without me. As you can see from this photo, he managed to end up being in the centre of things!

At about midnight, we sang Oggie happy birthday and then Janet & I dropped Bill off and went on to another party. This one was a smoke-free party at a local dance club. There we danced in a wonderful smoke-free atmostphere. Till 3.30am. My knee hurt, even as I was mistreating it, but I didn't care.. I do love dancing.

After crawling into bed until four am I dragged myself out of bed to catch a train to Aix les Bains. There I met with a very charming lady by the name of Arlette to collect an antique that I need to take back to Australia with me on Saturday. We had lunch in a restaurant next to the lake; fois gras for entree, pork with a cognac sauce and tarte tatin for dessert. We did in fact do a bit of a search to try and find if Aix les Bains had a museum, but without luck. We did walk a little around the lake, but with the weather being miserable, we didn't hang around there. Then back on the train to head home.